Tips to succeed?

I attempted it a couple years ago and it was a great experience. If I thought I'd have the time to put into it, I'd give it another shot but I think this year my November is booked too heavy as it is.

My advice is to just keep writing! Pacing is really important, it is easy to feel like "Oh, I have another three weeks..." and sluff it off at the beginning. But then you find yourself at the end trying to catch up and if you experience even the slightest block then you are boned.

So just pick a storyline and write it through even if it takes you somewhere unexpected.

First off, it might be an idea to do some outlining for the romance story. It doesn't have to be extensive - just enough to give you an idea of what to expect when writing it. It might make your decision easier.

Also, tips for succeeding?

Writing every day is one that I'm sure plenty of people will mention. I'd recommend doing a bit more than the daily goal of 1667 - maybe go up to 2000 words a day.

This way, you get the confidence boost of being ahead, and if you do miss a day or two, it's not the end of the world because you're still pretty much on track.

Stocking up on coffee/tea/beverage of choice and some form of easy snack is a good idea for most people doing NaNo... Whether these things help you write, or whether they're treats for after you've written enough that day, it's a good thing. (And it doesn't have to be junk food - if you want healthy treats, all the better.)

Umm, what else?

Oh, don't wait for inspiration to strike. It can take days or even weeks for that special "inspired" feeling to show up before you start writing. What I've found is that forcing myself to start writing will produce inspiration after I get sucked into the void of my Word file.

That's all I can think of right now... Write every day, don't wait for inspiration, and have supplies readily available.

Good luck!

Writing every day is great advice - but it can't always happen. 30 consecutive days without something happening to scupper your plans? My life is certainly not that certain! Stuff comes up. Emergencies happen. You get ill. You turn into a zombie. (Okay, maybe not the last one, except into a metaphorical sense.) I always work on 25 days of writing not 30. (I've never lost 5 whole days, but it could happen.) You can either adjust your daily target to 2000 words, or you can find additional writing time wherever possible and get ahead of target, so losing a day is no big deal and doesn't leave you with an entire day's worth of words to catch up.

Don't make a fetish of your writing environment. It's great to have an ideal situation of course. But nothing aside from the means to make words can be an essential. You don't want to lose time because you just can't write as your lucky writing socks are in the wash, or the store didn't have the right kind of hot chocolate. Cultivate the ability to write, or at least plan and brainstorm anywhere and everywhere.

Know that the internet will get along just fine without you for the next couple of hours and close your browser. And if you have something that alerts you to new emails, turn that off.

Allow yourself breaks though. I write in stretches of 45 minutes and then have to get up and move about a bit, maybe make a cuppa, for 15 minutes. Your back will thank you for this! Use a kitchen timer or your phone's alarm or something to keep to the time you choose. If the end of session alarm actually wakes you up from sleep, go to bed. Or have some coffee.

Save your work frequently. Backup your work when you're done for the day. EVERY DAY.

Choose something fun. I'd recommend against going into this with a project that's "IMPORTANT" to you because you might be setting yourself up for failure. Low pressure stories give you more of an opportunity to play.

In my first NaNo, I'd been wrestling with writing my first novel for a long time and also didn't know my fantasy universe very well. Rather than continue with that story for NaNo, I took my characters and threw them into another story set about a year later as if the first story had been written. It was a great way to explore my fantasy universe without worrying about ruining my original story.

Have you read Chris Baty's "No Plot? No Problem!"? Lots of good ideas in there about how to approach NaNo.

Good luck!

Yep, do something fun.

A let go. Let go of the ideas of it having to be good, or even having to make sense. Every time you do something ridiculous to make your daily word goal, tell yourself you'll fix it in the edit.

Anninyn said:

Every time you do something ridiculous to make your daily word goal, tell yourself you'll fix it in the edit.

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This - definitely this. I ended up writing the last 25K over Thanksgiving break one year (2004 maybe? My first year teaching full time.) because the rest of the month had been so crazy. And the funny thing was, some of the stuff that I thought was totally absurd at the time actually ended up working (with a few edits, of course).

This is my first Nano too, so I'm taking these tips in too.

My advice from writing in general is just to get off the internet. The other night I spent an hour on YouTube watching strange videos after promising myself I'd watch one video. I might just switch the internet off in November or I'll get nowhere.

Julie.G. said:

Hey everybody,

I'm trying to prepare myself for NaNoWriMo, it's my first time and it's really important for myself that I succeed, so can you give me some advice on how I do this? What are the most important things I have to figure out in advance?

I'm also dealing with a big dilemma:
Do I choose a fantasy novel whose storyline is figured out but I haven't really managed to figure out the details of my world... Which I think is pretty important? Also knowing that this project has been dragging along for a year now.

Or do I choose a young adult/romance novel with only a couple of ideas and just write and go with the flow?

What do you guys think? Maybe you already noticed that I have a slight preference for the second. I'm also more motivated but i'm really afraid that I will get stuck because I have no clue where the story is going...

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I aimed for 2k a day last year so I knew I'd be done in plenty of time. If I really had to miss a day, that was fine. I was ahead!

Re the fantasy, my best friend writes fantasy YA and I know how much time and effort goes into world building. If you haven't got it all nailed down (the world building alone took my friend a year to sort out) I'd go for the other one. But I'm not you! If you don't write what you love, how are you going to stick at it?

Re knowing where the story is going. I usually only figure out who my characters are, then the ending. That way I have something to work toward. How I get there is always a surprise, but it works for me

Just write. Don't edit. Don't overthink. Don't over-analyze. On December 1, you can go back and clean it up as much as you want but until then, give yourself permission to write and even if it's total garbage, it doesn't matter. Don't let it matter. You just might surprise yourself at the end.

I think building in down days is important. Most people can't write every day, just the nature of life. I often write 50k a month but it is a rare month nothing comes up. I wrote 50k last month with 7 unexpected down days.