How I’m Surviving NaNo2019

As I mentioned last post, I’m participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I was hesitant about doing NaNo again, cuz I find it to be a pretty hit or miss experience for me. Some years it’s great for knocking out a rough draft and getting a story that’s been in my head for a while down on paper; other years, it’s like strapping myself to the torturer’s rack.

I wasn’t sure how this year’s attempt would go, so I definitely came into it with a massive sense of dread. Was I going to end up pushing myself too hard? Was I going to write a bunch of useless words just for the sake of “winning” NaNo? Was I going to give up in the first few days because I had no motivation/inspiration?

I’m pleased to say that my worries were unfounded this year, thanks mostly to the following NaNo survival strategies that I’ve picked up.

1. This Is A Shitty First Draft, and That’s Fine

One of my favorite books on writing is Bird by Bird by Ann Lamott. It’s part memoir, part writing advice, and it’s probably the most influential book I ever read in AP Language and Composition. The piece of information that has stuck with me longest and is often the hardest to apply to my own work is that all first drafts are shitty. They just are. No matter how good a writer you are, your first draft will always be a mess, and the better you’re able to accept that reality, the more progress you’ll be able to make with your writing. For instance, my NaNo project is full of unwritten scenes, dropped plot points, and characters that serve no purpose. And that’s fine, I’ll fix those things in the revision. And because I’m aiming to write a shitty draft, I’m confident that when November is done, I’ll at least have a draft.

2. Fifteen Minute Timers Are My Friend

A little less than a year ago, I was officially diagnosed with ADHD, which wasn’t a surprise, but because I also have anxiety, I was worried that I wasn’t ADHD enough for the diagnosis (silly brain). Anyway, one of the things the psychiatrist told me after diagnosing me is that it would be suitable for my attention to work in fifteen to twenty-minute chunks followed by short breaks. I’ve tried working with timers before but had never quite worked out what amount of time worked best for me: an hour is too long, and I get distracted, half an hour is also too long, but I always thought it shouldn’t be so I kept trying. It turns out that fifteen minutes is perfect. Fifteen minutes lets me get into a writing groove and cuts me off before I get bored so that after I’m done with my fifteen-minute break, I’m still excited to write rather than resigned to the task. I also average about 500 words per fifteen-minute writing sprint, which means that I can reach my 2000 word daily goal in four sprints spaced throughout the day.

3. Words are Words are Words

I used to think that only words that went into telling the story could count towards my NaNo goal. The marvelous Mary Robinette Kowal liberated me from that misconception when I overheard her say, “Every word is service of fiction” counts. So, I’m counting my outlining, my research notes, my worldbuilding notes, my character sketching, heck even this blog post, towards my overall NaNo word count. There’s a little part of me that still thinks of that as cheating, but there’s a much larger and louder part of me that then shouts, “Hey Emily, this is a self-imposed challenge and the rules are a false construct, and you don’t need to interpret them to make life harder for yourself” and then I feel better.

4. Motivation Shmotivation

Looping back to the whole ADHD diagnosis, part of that having trouble motivating myself to do anything, and even if I am feeling motivated, sometimes I just can’t do the thing. It’s hard to explain. But one of the reasons why I have to write every day is because I frequently have zero motivation to write. Even though I love writing, even though I have fun writing, even though I know that once I’ve written, I’ll feel this awesome sense of accomplishment. So, if I want to achieve my writing goals, I can’t sit around waiting for motivation and her twin, inspiration, to strike, I just have to buckle down and do the thing, even if it mentally hurts, even if the result is shit. Because remember, in the case of writing, a shit result is better than no result (this can be applied to a lot of things besides writing).

 

I’m sure I was going to include another thing that’s helping me with NaNo this year, but I can’t remember what it was. Oh well. Anyway, the above approaches to my NaNo project have helped me keep on target with my word count. Now I just need to push myself a little harder so I can achieve my goal of reaching 50k words by November 28th, so I’m not NaNoing on a plane.

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you have any NaNo strategies you’d like to share.