Day One, Motivation, NaNoWriMo, Pay It Forward, productivity, Targets, Writing your Book

Writing Your Book, Part Four—On Your Marks, Get Set…

…and this is what you get after completing your marathon!

…Go!

November 1st each year fires the starting gun on National Novel Writing Month. Join up, and you commit to writing 50,000 words over the month of November (that works out at a shade under 1,700 words a day)

If you’ve read Part One of this series, (you can find it here), you’ll know that making a firm commitment and telling other people what you’re going to do makes it easier to succeed. Putting the news out there gives you an immoveable target, and spreading the word makes it harder for you to back out!

There are all sorts of participation and milestone badges to achieve through NaNoWriMo as you work toward the goal of writing your book.  Fill in your profile on the NaNoWriMo site to link up with thousands of other authors. You’ll find encouragement, and you can then pay it forward by helping others through their own sticky writing patches.

Any completed word count is a success story. If you achieve the ultimate and manage to reach the heroic target of 50k words, you’re judged a winner. You get a fancy certificate, like the one above. More importantly, you’ll have the satisfaction of proving to yourself you can stick with your project for a concentrated period of thirty days.

I find NaNoWriMo really useful spur to productivity. It gives me the motivation to start a project, and other members give me the support to continue. Why not try it this year? You can find out more at NaNoWriMo.org—sign in, and you’ll be ready for Day One tomorrow!

Creative Writing, Motivation, NaNoWriMo 2014, Tasting The Peach

Writing A Book In A Month: The Final Countdown…

Worth Every Minute…

The alarm’s just gone off for NaNoWriMo 2014. That’s it: the deadline was midnight on 30th November, no excuses.  If you’ve read Writing A Book In A Month, Parts One, Two, Three And Four, this is the big reveal. 

I put off reading through the whole of my NaNoWriMo project, Tasting The Peach until the last possible moment, in case I had a crisis of confidence and didn’t submit it. I was relieved to see the story all hung together (although there are some big gaps I’ll have to fill in during second, and subsequent, drafts). My characters mostly turned out the way I hoped they would, although as they came to life for me they developed and grew in ways I hadn’t expected. 

I sent Tasting The Peach for validation on 29th of November, and my total word count was logged at 55,295 by NaNoWriMo central. I’ve printed out my personalised Winner’s Certificate, and now I feel wrung out and quite honestly, a bit emotional. What am I going to do, now all the pressure to finish is off? Read on, to find out…

Coming Soon…

NaNoWriMo is an invaluable hub and resource for writers. You’ll find mentors, tips and pep talks, shoulders to cry on and writing buddies to help you celebrate. It doesn’t matter whether you’re starting out, or an old hand who’s trying something new. Everybody learns from the experience, and has a good time in the process. For an investment of around £6, I got a month’s writing retreat right here in my office, but away from all other artistic distractions. It gave me the chance to dedicate an exclusive block of time to a project I’ve always had to sideline through pressure of other work. Sometimes you have to say “No” to requests. That’s always hard, but being able to say “Sorry, I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year!” made it a bit easier. 

The NaNoWriMo writing marathon each November is an international event that keeps on growing, but maintaining the site and networks takes money. They rely on donations, so read the testimonials here, then make a resolution to join NaNoWriMo 2015.

So, what’s next? Tomorrow I start a new WIP, but that’s quite literally another story. Or rather, two! I’ll be writing about this next project in a series of blogs called The Birth Of A Book. If you want to follow the roller-coaster ride all the way from basic idea to publication, click the “Subscribe To My Blog” button, at the top right hand side of this page.

To keep up with the progress of my next big release, His Majesty’s Secret Passion, please visit my Facebook Author page here, and click on the “like” button.