The Pretend Blogger

So we are in the 4th day of NaNoWriMo and hopefully things are going well for everyone! I myself have hit a little snag and have decided to change up my story. Instead of being completely in journal format I am going to have some third person narrative in order to better tell the story which is kind of scary because if you're like me you are good (fast in in the nano world) at one type of writing and third person ain't it. Hopefully I'll get do well with this new transition.

Anyways I hope everyone is doing wonderfully and if you are not remember that it is just the first week! No need to fret, if you are having trouble finding time during the week days remember that you don't need to sit down and write all 1,667 words a day at one time. Take 10 minutes to write whenever you can. This is a tip fitness experts suggest in order to fit exercise into your day so why not writing? This way you won't feel overwhelmed by trying to reach your word count in one sitting and it won't feel like you are taking so much time out of your day!

On the other hand, if you do have time to sit down and write why not join in your region's write-ins? There Municipal Liaisons for each region and it is solely their job to motivate and gather WriMos from the area for write-ins where everyone meets at a library or coffee shop and shares their woes and triumphs and makes tons of progress on their word count. If you do not know where you can find your ML or write-ins just go to the edit user info section of "My NaNoWriMo" and find your state and town. You should get emails from the ML after you register on there and they will let you know when write-ins are happening etc.

Moral of the story: don't fret it is only week one. be creative when it comes to finding time to write-it IS possible. go to write-ins!

So you've decided that you're doing NaNoWriMo this year and devoting 30 days of your life to developing a novel. That is great. The only problem is that you are a full time student (and maybe even a part time employee on top of that). Along with the novel you are going to have papers, assignments, readings and exams to work through. I have talked to several people whose reasons for not doing Nano is "I want to have a high GPA" or "I have too much work to do". Here are two tips for those people (and anyone else who is in school):

1. Start doing small assignments now. If you are in a class that has small papers or articles due every few weeks go ahead and do the ones for the month of November. You'll feel incredibly accomplished now and have one less excuse for not working on your novel.

2.Get Prepared. This is completely related to the first tip but just look at what you have going on for the next month. Write it out in a calendar if you don't already have it compiled and see how packed it is going to be...then prepare. Get ahead in some work or take a few slow days for school and beef up your word count (ideally you should write 1,667 words a day but who says you can't triple that and not write for a couple days??)

These are the best tips that I have seen passed around and they are what I'm going to do in order to survive my senior year and still write a novel!

We are officially on a 7 day countdown so get ready!

I'm getting more and more antsy as November 1st draws closer. Maybe this is happening to you (which is GREAT), but if it isn't here are some tips to get you pumped about NaNoWriMo 2009:

1. Set up your Author Info page. This will be a sign of your commitment to the Nano world that you WILL be novelling this year. There is even space for "Novel Info" and if you're like me you won't be able to leave that blank so you've got to come up with a synopsis, at least one line to explain what you're aiming for-it'll help get you ready,I promise.

-Here's mine: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/200729

2. Check out the forums, and POST. Nothing gets people more excited about something than being around others that are already chomping at the bit. These people are found in the Nano forums. There are at least 20 different sub forums you can check out. Some are separated by age and genre while others are just about writing tips and complaints/advice for the craziness that is writing a novel in 30 days. Who knows, maybe you'll find someone writing a novel similar to yours and you can check in with each other (NaNoWriMo is cheesy enough to call these friends your "writing buddies") :D

3. Keep up with this blog and others like it. Just going through the forums I found over 100 people with blogs of their own! I'm looking at some of them for tips and motivation, you should too.
-Here is a link to the thread of the blog and a few blogs that I've started to follow:
-http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/node/3267091
-http://zette.blogspot.com/
-http://nicolehumphrey.net/blog/
-http://zen-writer.blogspot.com/
-http://www.nanomadness.blogspot.com/

A few more basic motivational tasks to get ready for November 2009: keep a notebook on hand in case you come up with character names or plot while you're waiting for the bus, buy a starbucks/caribou coffee/your favorite little coffee house gift card-you'll need it (think of it as a reward for doing something SO AWESOME), print out some of the flyers. I have one on my hall door and one on my desk...and there will be plenty more to come!

Basically, the short of it is that you need to get EXCITED now. November is coming quickly (11 days!) and i shouldn't be scary. If it seems a little intimidating thats cool...and a kind of motivation in itself. If it seems terrifying refer back to 1-3.

Happy preparing!

I'm sure many people have had their novel planned out for months and even more have no clue what they are doing. I'm just now doing a little fine tuning to my very broad idea for this novel and have a couple of tips.

First off: DON'T PLAN EVERYTHING. If you plan everything-beginning, middle and end you will not have the "true" NaNo experience. It is all about the randomness and creativity that comes along with unplanned journeys and characters that develop a mind of their own. Having a strict plan will probably take most of the joy out of this project so keep it simple. For instance this is all I have so far for my novel and I think I'm ready to begin writing:

-Main Character (Ava) who has Bipolar disorder and is diagnosed during the course of the novel
-Ava is married to a man named Scott who has trouble accepting his wife's illness
-It will be in journal form at least some of the time and first person for the entirety of the book

That is it. That is all I've got and I get to sit back (figuratively...technically I will be furiously typing as my back and fingers cramp up) and write,

Secondly, Do the fun stuff now! Come up with your characters names. Full names and what they look like. Imagine what their houses look like and their surroundings but don't fall in love with it, who knows what will change? Take your time thinking about these because you HAVE to fall in love with your characters to succeed. Whether you truly love them or just love to hate them you have to be attached so start early. The more fun you have with your characters the more excited you'll be when it comes November 1st and you have to really bring them to life!

I've decided to dedicate this blog to NaNoWriMo for the time being. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month which is a project designed by Chris Baty of California and takes place in November. It is a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in one month, which is quite a feat but not impossible. It involves writing 1,667 words a day for the 30 days of November (why they didn't choose a month with 31 days I will never understand).

The world of blogging is an interesting one. I've tried several times to maintain a blog and have failed miserably several times and less than miserably once. Nowadays I use Twitter religiously and satisfies my need to rant or rave about something random, but sometimes I want to say more. Maybe people won't be following or listening to me on here but that doesn't matter as much as actually having room to express myself. 140 characters is great but sometimes you just have to go further...