Why do you do NaNoWriMo? What benefits have you gotten from your participation?

I  signed up for NaNoWriMo to because I’m the eternal procrastinator but I tend to respond well to watching pretty graphs grow and feeling that other people could be watching me. Although I didn’t participate in the forums a lot last year, I read what a lot of other people were talking about and felt like I was part of something much bigger than just me and my computer in a small room in Perth.
The biggest benefit was learning that I *can* write a lot, when I have to. Since then I’ve been able to push myself a bit more because I know that back in November I wrote 50,000 words in less than a month.

How did you keep yourself inspired and motivated during NaNoWriMo?

A month is a short enough time (for me) that I could keep myself motivated mostly by wanting to be able to see the bars on my daily word count graph get higher. Obviously this wouldn’t work long term, but for a month it’s possible, and that kept me motivated. Also, I told quite a few people that I was taking part (and blogged about) so I didn’t want to have to admit defeat.

As for being inspired, that was surprisingly easy but if I got a bit uninspired I would browse the forums and see what kinds of titles other people had for their novels and how many words they’d written.

What sort of planning, if any, are you doing this year before you start writing?

I’m doing much more planning this year. Last year I didn’t plan at all, really, and while I still managed to get plenty written, the rewriting is an ongoing nightmare and I’ve had to throw a lot out. So this year I am getting much more detailed with chapter outlines etc — but only for the first 3/4 of the novel, the ending is still a mystery to me. That’s largely because I can’t quite figure out what the characters will really do, and because I think that’s a good way to write — let them decide for me. I think if I knew the entire story first I might not be interested enough to write it.

What are some of the tools you use to keep yourself organized and on-track during NaNoWriMo? How do you use them?

Nothing too fancy, but the graph included in your NaNoWriMo profile page was a godsend. Loved it. I did also (geekily) use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of how many words I needed to finish each day to stay on target (depending on how many I’d already written — this number often varied).

How do you manage your time during NaNoWriMo to make time for writing?

Badly. And I became a social hermit, spending several weekends locked in front of the computer.

What advice do you have for other writers doing NaNoWriMo for the first time?

Try to plan a structure for your novel even if you feel resistant to this idea.
Write extra (more than the daily target) for the first week or two so that the second week or two are easier.

Always stop writing in the middle of something you’re enjoying so it’s easy to start again.

Don’t worry if some of what you write is drivel, it is quantity not quality at this point.

Why do you do NaNoWriMo?

I did NaNoWriMo last year on a whim. A couple of friends on a forum I frequent were doing it, so I decided to give it a try too. I had not been writing much as of late, and I thought it might be the kick in the pants I needed. It worked out so well that I decided to do it again this year.

What benefits have you gotten from your participation?

I was right, it was the kick in the pants I needed. I already had a story idea, and NaNo both got me started, and kept me going.

How did you keep yourself inspired and motivated during NaNoWriMo?

I had the luxury of having well developed characters from previous stories I had written. I already had a seed of a story in mind. So, once I decided I was going to do it I sat down and developed a detailed outline and a detailed setting, complete with maps. With those in hand, the story almost wrote itself.

What sort of planning, if any, are you doing this year before you start writing?

I am doing another mystery this year, but not with the same detective or area. Last year’s story was with a private detective in South Carolina, a guy I had written a lot about. This year I’m using a Police Detective in St. Louis. So I have to do a lot of research in just how the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department works, and how it interacts with the Major Case Squad. I am working up my outline now, so I hope to be ready to go at the starting gun. I’m from St. Louis, so at least this time I won’t have to do a lot of geographic research.

What are some of the tools you use to keep yourself organized and on-track during NaNoWriMo? How do you use them?

I don’t know that I use a lot of tools, other than the outline, maps, and the Internet. Of course, I have my favorite bookmarks.

How do you manage your time during NaNoWriMo to make time for writing?

I generally write at night, after dinner. If I’m in the flow, I just lose track of time until I realize it’s time for bed. I have a day job, so I can’t ignore that. When I’m writing, my family generally leaves me to it, so I have very few distractions.

What advice do you have for other writers doing NaNoWriMo for the first time?

Start out with a plot, not just a vague idea of a story. In other words, know where you are going and why you (your characters) are going there. Some people don’t like outlines, but if you can work with one, develop a detailed outline before the start date. But don’t be afraid to deviate from the outline. Sometimes good stuff just happens.

Why do you do NaNoWriMo?

I’m addicted now. I don’t write as much as I’d like to during the rest of the year because I do have other important obligations.  This is the highlight of the year for the writer in me, the month when storytelling gets first priority. I do it strictly for fun and for me and it fills the well that lets me balance everything for the rest of the year.  Or at least till the next writer’s conference. 

What benefits have you gotten from your participation?

I finally understand why it’s so important to have a complete draft before getting to the revision and editing. I have also learned flexibility: the process that worked so brilliantly the first year has never worked as well again.  Each story has it’s own rhythm and its own needs. 

One year I outlined about six major scenes ahead of time and then used the month to link them together.  The following year I worked from portrait pictures I found online, in-depth character sketches and used current events news coverage to keep me going.  Last year I had a hard time coming up with a good story line at all – I only had the picture of my main character in my head.  I forced myself to start anyway and let all the discovery happen as I wrote.  For a control freak like me, that was more gut wrenching than jumping out of a plane.  I think.  It worked far better than I thought possible.  I find it much easier now to relax and go with the flow.

How did you keep yourself inspired and motivated during NaNoWriMo?

Quotes, music, walks, candles, coffee, naps and, most important, online writing buddies.  I also love leaving off in the middle of something so I’m primed to start back up at the earliest possible opportunity.

What sort of planning, if any, are you doing this year before you start writing?

Just yesterday I decided that this year I would expand a short story that has potential to be something bigger.  I’ll do more in-depth character sketches and probably some brief storyboards for an opening scene, perhaps a closing scene, and about three major turning points–a technique loosely based on The Weekend Novelist by Robert J. Ray (the old edition; I haven’t read the recently released updated version).   

What are some of the tools you use to keep yourself organized and on-track during NaNoWriMo? How do you use them?

I like the NaNo report card and calendars that are downloadable from forum links on the site. The report card gives me a visual: I like seeing progress. But it can get discouraging when there isn’t any, so I’m not always good at keeping them updated daily.

Last year I numbered every scene I wrote and then did a scene-by-scene track on an Excel spreadsheet: who, where, when, what happened, and “remember this” as column headers, then numbered a row for each scene. Part way through I added a “check or change” column to jot notes where I thought there might be problems so I wouldn’t feel tempted to go back and do any editing right then.

The spreadsheet helped tremendously because I didn’t write in order.  I wrote scenes that grabbed me when they grabbed me, whether the story was ready for them at that point or not.  Then when I got stuck, I’d figure out where I needed to add transitional material and could generally get myself going again by brainstorming myself or with my writing buddies.  Also a glance at the spread sheet at the end of a writing session let me subconsciously work out what might be needed to bridge gaps as I went about whatever else I had to do.

How do you manage your time during NaNoWriMo to make time for writing?

My motto:  Early in the day, early in the week, early in the month.  I do my best not to procrastinate, because I never know what will pop up.  When I have time I use it.  I am a homeschooling mom, but now my last student is on auto-pilot as far as school goes and requires very little of my time, so my days are more flexible than most.

Planning ahead in September and October helps a bunch too.  We run a small property-management business from home, so I get filing, bookkeeping, etc. up to date by Oct 31st, schedule bill payments online for November, and clear out as much of my other obligations as possible. My family seems to stay happy if they’re fed.  So I plan plenty of quick, easy, crock-pot and/or freezer meals. My son is a good cook, and he’ll pitch in to help me when I need it. And I write like crazy during football games or whenever the house is empty.  On days when the interruptions get to be too much (usually phone calls) I escape to the library for a while; that’s always cheaper than escaping to Starbucks or Panera Bread.

What advice do you have for other writers doing NaNoWriMo for the first time?

Just write.  Don’t edit.  At first I had to really work at this, because my internal editor didn’t like being ignored.  But it got easier, and most importantly, it became fun.  The freedom allowed me to experiment and discover like I’d never done before.  That’s what got me hooked. 

I start every year telling myself it doesn’t matter if the writing makes sense.  It doesn’t matter if there are gaps.  If I hit a wall and don’t know what comes next, who cares.  Write the end.  Or write the next scene I want to write.  There are no rules at this stage of the game. 

An extra bonus that comes in the months following, I come to love my internal editor.  We have fun tweaking and making the story stronger.  When you have an entire manuscript to work with, rewriting and reworking the story is so much easier. No matter how bad you think your manuscript is at the end of November, you’ll know more about writing then than you did when you went in.   It is so true that with writing, the learning is in the doing.

 

Image by churl via Flickr

It’s November and for thousands of writers, that means National Novel Writing Month (or “NaNoWriMo”) a grueling exercise in creativity and self-discipline with the goal of creating a 50,000 word novel manuscript in 30 days.

I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year – I don’t have any pressing desire to write a novel at the moment, and I’m a little overbalanced already juggling two full-time jobs (teaching and freelance writing) already. But though I won’t be working towards a completed manuscript, I’ll have something in common with those writers who are doing NaNoWriMo this year – like them, I’ll be writing somewhere in the neighborhood of 1700 words a day, pretty much every day in November. Unlike them, I’ll do the same thing in December, then in January, and on and on.

While I admire the single-mindedness of the NaNoWriMo participants, the dogged determination to produce a novel, the fact is that writers who write for a living are always in NaNoWriMo mode. I figure I write somewhere between 300,000 – 400,000 words a year for publication, plus countless work I produce that either doesn’t get published or gets circulated informally (on academic listservs, for instance). That works out to about 1200–1400 words a day, 250 days a year, not far off from the 1700 words a NaNoWriMo writer needs to average every day in November to hit the 50,000-word mark.

I don’t say this to brag – frankly, it isn’t brag-worthy. It’s just what a working writer has to do. There are plenty of writers who are more productive than I am – and plenty of writers with more on their plate than I have who manage to write as much. The point isn’t to brag, but to talk about how I, and so many others, manage to sustain a reasonably high level of productivity day in and day out, in the hopes that it will give some of the NaNoWriMo writers out there a little inspiration in their long slog towards 50,000 words.

Here, then, are 7 tips to help keep you focused on your writing goals. I’m assuming you’ve already set goals (SMART goals, even!) – if you’re taking the NaNoWriMo challenge, the goals are more or less set for you: 50,000 words by November 30, with accountability provided by NaNoWriMo’s word count tracking.

1. Make a commitment.

Whether you write year-round or just during NaNoWriMo, at least 90% of getting to “done” is having the right mind-set. Making a commitment doesn’t just mean sitting down and grinding the words out day after day, but feeling every day’s writing as an expression of who you are and the choices you have made. You have to be able to see yourself as a writer, and/or as a NaNoWriMo winner, not just in the future but in the now — the words you write today have to count as you write them, not in some imagined future if you reach your goals.

In fact, commitment has as much to do with failure as with success. Commitment means that you’ll be as happy to work your ass off for 30 days and not hit 50,000 words as if you do reach 50,000 words. Because if you really try, if you really put yourself out there and you still don’t make it, you’ll know there is room for you to grow as a writer – and you’ll have a good idea of where those opportunities lie.

2. Set a schedule.

Think about your life. There’s things that are important to you, things you have to do – classes, work, dates, your kids’ activities, business flights, doctor’s appointments. Then there are things that are less important, things you’ll try to fit in when you have a spare moment – reading a new novel, visiting the museum, sorting your family photos. The difference between these two types of activities is that the first ones, the profoundly important ones, the ones we need to be absolutely sure we don’t miss, have their own specific time set aside for them. The second group, the ones that are nice to get done but not crucial in any way, get done “whenever”.

Which group does your writing belong in?

Even if your time is relatively unstructured, make sure to schedule fixed times for writing every day. If your schedule is already complex, this is even more important – it’s far to easy to find yourself too drained after a hard day’s work to put n your writing time. Knowing that 7-9pm is writing time will help keep you from getting distracted. If you have the time and keep writing beyond your scheduled time, that’s fine – but make sure you block off enough time to do your minimum writing throughout the week.

3. Make a sacrifice.

Chances are, your time is already pretty much spoken for, so to fit in any serious writing, something’s going to have to give. Getting up an hour earlier might be in order. Remember that to stay healthy, you’ll need to get to sleep earlier too, so this is a serious lifestyle change (hence the sacrifice) – but many writers fid that the quiet time before their day gets under way is a more productive time than the last tired hour before they go to bed.

Another sacrifice to consider is giving up an hour or two of television each night. Given the state of TV these days, that might not be much of a sacrifice! Or you might give up part of your lunch hour, a weekly visit to the spa, or your morning newspaper ritual.

There’s something more to this than just making time, though. Making some kind of sacrifice reinforces the importance of your writing. What’s more, discovering that what you’ve given up pales in comparison to the writing you’ve accomplished puts you one step closer to embracing your identity as a writer.

4. Write an outline.

I know: BOR-iiiing! Shades of high school all over, right?

Get over it.

While there are a handful of prolific writers who don’t outline (not formally, anyway – many still map out their writing in their heads), the more pressure you’re under to write lots, the more some kind of planning will help.

Outlining exists at two levels. The first is project outlining, laying out the course of your project from start to finish – usually chapter-by-chapter (for works long enough to have chapters, anyway) with subheads and main points for each chapter. The second is session outlining, putting down what you plan to write about in each session of writing. As a general rule, any time you sit down to write, it’s a good idea to lay out a few basic points, milestones you intend to hit in your days writing. Likewise, if you’re brainstorming – or an idea just comes to you out of the blue – write down a couple of main points when you write down each idea.

5. Capture everything.

When you’re writing all the time, you need ideas – all the time. Ideally, when you sit down to write, you’ll just need to record and structure the ideas that you’ve already worked through over the course of the day. The lass time you spend thinking of what to write, the more time you can spend during your allotted writing time just writing.

That’s why capturing ideas when they occur, wherever they occur, is so important. Carry a notebook, and use it. Adopt a ubiquitous capture strategy and live by it. Do as much of that work as possible before you start your writing session, the better – and the less likely you are to spend your precious writing time trying desperately to think of something to write.

6. Park downhill.

Always leave off writing when you have at least one more thing to say. Writing is weird – most of the time, it takes a ton of effort to get started, but once we’re writing, the words just come. Minimize the effort you need to reach “escape velocity” by setting yourself up to have something to say the moment you sit down. By the time you finish writing what you sat down already prepared to write, you’ll have built up the momentum to carry you into the next thought.

7. Condition yourself to write.

If at all possible, set aside a place for writing, ideally only for writing. Every time you sit down in that place, write something. Before long, your mind will come to associate the place itself with the act of writing, so that sitting down will trigger the urge to write.

Some writers create little rituals they perform before or as they write. Again, if you have a set of steps you go through before you write, going through those steps can help trigger your mind to write. The idea is to create self-reinforcing associations – connections between certain places, times, or acts that help shift you into the writing mindset.

For more tips on hitting your writing goals every day, be sure to read the interviews I’ll be posting throughout the month with writers who have done NaNoWriMo before – not all of them have “won”, but all of them have developed their own strategies for getting to “done” in their writing. And please let us know your techniques in the comments!

Fortunately, Word has long had a little-used feature that allows you to work with separate “chunks” of content and compile them into a single final document. It’s called a “master document” and is a pretty straight-forward but powerful tool. Simply put, a master document is a single document that pulls content in from several other documents, like individual chapters.

In the past, people have had some trouble with master documents, and it’s easy to see why: you’re asking Word to put together documents with different preferences, formatting options, and other settings, and Word has to make some difficult choices. If you’re using consistent style sets across your documents, though, much of Word’s work is done for it. And since Word 2007 makes styles so much easier to work with, many of the problems users of previous editions of Word had should be alleviated.

Creating a Master Document in Word 2007

While you can make a master document at any point in the writing process, it’s best to start your project intending to use a master document. Create a single folder for your document, and save all the pieces into it. You’ll be telling the master document where to look on your hard drive for the pieces it needs to put together, and if you decide to move them halfway through the project, you’ll confuse your master document.

Once you’ve created your project folder, open Word and create a master document. You can start from scratch or use an existing document — but since you’ve planned out your project in advance (right?), I’m going to assume you’re starting from scratch. Go to the “View” tab and select “Outline view”. The ribbon bar will change, giving you options for master documents. Click “Show Document” — the menu will change again, opening the options for master documents.

From there, you can “Create” new sub-documents, or “Insert” existing documents as sub-documents. Essentially, you’re outlining your project, with each big section — prefaces, introductions, chapters, chapter sub-sections, even big chunks of text — going into a separate document.

Next to the grey circle/minus sign icon, type a section heading — let’s say, a chapter title. Hit “Return”. Type another section heading. Hit “return”. And so on, fleshing out your outline. You can use the tab key to indent levels that will become sub-section headings and sub-sub-section headings.

Place your cursor in any heading (or sub– or sub-sub-heading) and hit the “Create” button and the heading will become an editable space. Any text you type next to the bullet point will be added to the sub-document. Double-clicking on the little “text” icon next to the header will open the sub-document, which you can edit independently. When you save the new document (you’ll be given a normal “Save” dialogue — save it into your project folder) the master document will be updated with the changes you made to the sub-document.

Placing your cursor on a heading and click the “Insert” button will allow you to select any document and insert it into your master document. I suggest copying any already-existing documents into your project folder first, so there’s no confusion about what files to edit or where everything is.

When you hit “Close Outline View”, you’ll return to the normal page layout and see your document looking like any other document.

Outlining a Document in Word 2007

You can also use the “Outline” view to create an outline of any Word document, as long as you’re using styles. Word will convert any Heading 1, Heading 2, etc. styles into appropriate level headings, and stick the paragraphs under them into the outline as separate bullet points. You can, of course, make changes, add sections, and so on from the “Outline” view.

You can convert your document into a master document, but you have to be careful of the text. Selecting a heading and all of the text under it, then hit “Create”. Or select a heading, hit “Create”, and drag and drop the text into the box around the new sub-document entry.

The “Outline” view can be a powerful tool, but it’s incredibly under-used. That’s understandable, since it is not entirely intuitive — it doesn’t work quite like you’d expect an outliner to work (and like most outlining programs work) and it’s not exactly pretty. Still, once you get a hang of it, there’s a lot to do with it, especially if you’re comfortable with master documents.