Week Two of NaNoWriMo

Week Two of NaNoWriMo

Welcome to week two of NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month challenge. Are you making progress? Are you sitting down every day, even if it’s only for twenty or thirty minutes to write? Remember, it is all about discipline, and making it a habit to write every day.  Once you make it a habit to sit down and write every day, you will soon look forward to that time.

As I am getting back into this first draft novel I completed last year, I am cleaning up a lot of the story. I enjoy this part of the process because I have a skeleton for each chapter that I can now elaborate on, adding flesh and blood and make it whole. I am also cataloging all the names of characters and places so I can better keep everything straight and clean up whatever mistakes I made when I wrote the first draft.

Remember, we all work differently. Some writers like to keep track of everything from the first page. Some will go so far as to write biographies for their characters and describe what they look like physically. No way is right for everyone, so find the way you prefer to write. For me, the details of the first draft are not as dire as they are for the re-write. My first draft is a clear map of the story. With that I can then go back and start making little twists and turns in the story. I can add details to characters as needed.

One way I have worked in the past was to begin the writing session by reading what I wrote the day before, re-writing that, and then going forward to the new pages. This worked for me years ago. I feel I am in a different place now, so I’m trying a different way of writing and it is working. Don’t be afraid to experiment to help determine the best way to complete your manuscript.

Remember, the object here is to complete your manuscript. If you don’t have a novel in you, complete a manuscript of any word length. The goal is to finish. Don’t let the idea of 50,000 words stop you from completing this challenge. Maybe you get a first draft of 25,000 words. You can then go back and start filling in the details when the first draft is finished.

Do you have any practices you do before you write? Do you do anything to get your brain humming before you sit down to put words on paper? Are you someone who likes to write in the morning, fresh from sleep or are you someone who enjoys the late night hours, when the rest of the world is asleep to jot down your ideas? Use this challenge to find out what kind of writer you are.