Productivity. Progress. Working under pressure. Goal-setting.

These are the skills that a month of novel writing will sharpen and perfect. Even if you’re not a writer, and you don’t plan on becoming one, spending a little alone time with your imagination for a month benefits you more than you can believe. As a novelist myself, 50,000 words in thirty days at first seemed impossible. How would I find time? What if my idea wasn’t good enough? None of that matters in the month of November. As you crank out about 2k words a day, you’re focused on moving towards your goal, towards completion, and right now, nothing else matters.

But if you’re considering diving into NaNoWriMo, there are some things you need to consider beforehand.

For a successful Noveling month, you have to plan ahead.

• Sure, some of the best stuff you’re going to write is completely improv, completely off the top of your head. But if your story doesn’t have direction from the start, you’re going to spend a lot of time going in circles. Mapping out scenes before writing helps some authors, other authors need an idea of where they’re going from the very start.
• Stay motivated and inspired! Listen to music. Look at relevant pictures. Let your imagination take control. If you lose that spark of determination, then you need to get it back before you continue writing. The only person who has to believe in your writing is YOU!
• Know your characters. Before jumping into the month, you need to have two or three characters that you know as if they were real. The side characters will develop their personalities on their own.

After the month is over, you don’t necessarily have to continue writing your book.

• Sometimes, post-NaNoWriMo, people take a look at their finally written book and can’t find any positives. To them, their 50,000 words are total crap. If that happens to you, spend some time away from your draft, but don’t delete it! When you come back and read it with fresh eyes, you’ll be able to find the soul of your story. The next step in the process is taking that soul, that spark of creativity and emotion, and molding the story to best channel that light of brilliance. That next step doesn’t have to be taken in the upcoming days, months, years- or even at all!
• Know that, even though your draft may never see the light of day, you’ve written more in a month than some people will write in their lifetimes.

National Novel Writing Month is an adventure that each individual has to approach in their own way. Some aren’t ready for that journey, and some are.

If you’re ready, log onto www.nanowrimo.org for more information about the program, and take part in this adventure next November!

-Rika