So, it’s once again National Novel Writing Month. I’ve never personally attempted NaNoWriMo; my personal best for writing an entire novel is about three months, but that was back in my youth when my brain was more plastic and I had more of it, and also not coincidentally back before I had the Internet and enough money in the budget for decent whiskey. These days I’m not sure I have enough of either to write a book in a month.
That doesn’t mean I have no advice for you if you’re attempting NaNoWriMo yourself. Because that’s sort of what I do these days: I write novels, I wrote about other people’s novels, and I write about how to write novels. So here’s my advice for anyone attempting NaNoWriMo this year: Don’t look back.
Head Down, Hands on Keyboard
That means don’t revise. Don’t reconsider. Don’t think too hard. The NaNoWriMo train only goes in one direction: Forward.
The moment you start to wonder if the scene you just wrote matches up with what you wrote two weeks ago, you’re lost, bub. If you’re going to end the month on THE END and 50,000 words, you’ve got to just keep writing. Get to the end. Place scene after scene until you have a plot.
Because that’s what revision is for—that’s what National Novel Editing Month is for. Your NaNoWriMo book might be a hot mess, but if it’s recognizably a book you win The Internet and get to go back and spend the next month (or year, or years) fixing it up and making it into something great. But to get there you can’t get bogged down in details like, Does my story make sense?, or, Do my characters read like real people instead of Internet contraptions? Those kinds of questions will kill your forward momentum and leave you with 20,000 words that filter through your fingers like sand.
Plus, that sort of writing is fun. Even if you’re an inveterate Plotter, just saying yippee-kay-yay, motherfuckers and tapping away at the keyboard while giggling like a Batman supervillain is invigorating. No, it doesn’t always mean great writing, but it does give you a chance at finishing your novel.
Although I’d keep the cursing and giggling to a minimum if you’re writing in a public space, he said from no personal experience whatsoever.