Ganymeder

Late nights, early mornings, caffeine binges, and brownie overload. Sadly, the end of Nanowrimo is upon us.

What I’ve learned from Nanowrimo this year.

(This only reflects my opinion, though others might have similar outlooks)

1. Nanowrimo is not just for adults and teens, but for much younger children as well. I had heard of the Young Writer’s Program for Nanowrimo, but I had thought it applied only to teens. YWP is for 13 year olds and younger who want to try to write a novel in a month. The biggest difference is that the site is more protected and the participants set their own word goals for the month. My seven year old surprised me by asking to do Nanowrimo this year. He was able to go to his own YWP webpage and watch his progress bar progress through the entire month, and he finished his 1,000 word novel on Saturday (11/22) – over a week early!

2. Packing more into your schedule actually increases productivity. At least, it seems that way for me. I should probably say I remembered this or rediscovered it, because I believe Chris Baty said basically the same thing in his wonderful book “No Plot! No Problem!” I wasn’t really sure I could do a nano this year. I had more going on in my personal schedule, and I wasn’t sure I could make the time for it. Amazingly, the less free time you actually have, the more constructive you are with how you use it. I found myself writing during 10 minute breaks between housework. I would write when I’d wake up a little later or earlier than usual. I carried my notebook and eee pc around with me so I could write when I had to wait somewhere or if I got a sudden burst of brilliance. Instead of having less energy and feeling overwhelmed, I had fresh bursts of energy and inspiration that carried over into other parts of my life. I’ve gotten more done during this month of November than I usually get done in two months around the house.

3. Clearing out all the temporal clutter in your schedule really pays off. This is something I already knew, but it’s worth stating again. No new books. No web surfing. No compulsive email checking. It’s amazing how much time and mental energy that frees up. It’s really quite liberating to put all the unnecessary stuff on hold and just say, “I’ll get back to you in a month.”

4. You find inspiration in every little thing, when you’re looking for a good story idea. I found myself constantly thinking along the lines of what would be good material for my nano. A Super hero using her veganism for the forces of good? Sure! Caffeine addiction in main characters? Sure! It’s funny AND relevant since my novel was written primarily on soda, tea, and several batches of brownies.

5. Time is strangely warped when in writing mode. If you have tons of inspiration and the ideas are just flowing, you find tons of time to just write, write, write like crazy. When you aren’t sure what to do or where you’re story is going, suddenly everything else needs to get done first before you can possibly sit down and spare a minute to write. But, this leads me to…

6. Even when you’re stuck, if you just write whatever pops into your head, you’ll get past whatever perceived difficulties arise.

7. Deadlines are essential. No matter how many dishes need to get done (point #5) or difficult parts you come across (point #6), if you have a deadline, you MAKE yourself cross it.

8. Apparently, when taking a break from writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days (or less), writing on a blog is a stress reliever. Who knew that writing nonfiction could be a way to relax from writing fiction?

9. Reaching your word count early is less satisfying when you haven’t reached the actual end of your story. Conversely…

10. The end of your story approaches more rapidly when you’ve already reached your overall word count goal.

11. When you’ve reached the end of your novel, you experience total bliss. Let me just state that again. Just to be clear. TOTAL. BLISS.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to reward myself for my literary achievement in high speed novelling by having a nice meal, starting a new book, and watching Stargate Atlantis.