The Creativity Project: Lesson’s from NaNoWriMo
What I’ve learned from doing this challenge for years.
We are at the end of the first week of NaNoWriMo. I’m cruising along with my story. The first week is usually the best because all of the excitement is there. By weeks two or three, I start dragging butt and get burned out. While I was scrolling my memories on Facebook, it came up that I had Scrivener problems five years ago and it got me thinking about all the lessons I’ve learned over my years doing this challenge.
Prioritizing my writing
I think this one is the biggest lesson most writers learn during NaNo. This is the one time of the year where we can say, “don’t bother me, I’m writing” and it gets listened to. I’m lucky in the fact that my husband is also a creative person and understands not interrupting the flow, but I know a lot of writers don’t have that and will get interrupted by kids and family members because we aren’t busy, we’re just staring into space.
This invalidation of our work also makes us feel like it isn’t a priority and we just push it off. NaNo has made it so I write just about every day and make my work one of my top priorities.
Backing up my work
This is the problem I had five years ago: Scrivener ate a chapter of my novel and there was no way to get it back. All of my friends who are in the IT world or in data recovery couldn’t pull up the missing chapter. And it was my favorite.
I usually write my first drafts by hand, so it took me searching through the folder for the pages before I could fix the missing words, but it was heartbreaking to lose all of that work because Scrivener was hungry.
And you would’ve thought it would teach me to back up my work more than once or twice a year, but you’d be wrong. It took Scrivener doing the same thing the following NaNo before I started routinely backing up my work. Now, I back up my work to the cloud after every session, do another back up to my data drive every month or two, and back up to my external hard drive once to twice a year.
Taking breaks
Sitting at my desk for the length of time it takes to type up my novels, or hand write them, is hard on my body and I don’t generally notice until I stand up at the end of the day. So I’ve instituted taking breaks throughout the writing process, usually using the Pomodoro method of 25 minutes on (usually more) and 5 minutes off.
But more than that, if I need a day off because I’m fried, I take a day off without guilt. I know I’m under a deadline for NaNo, but I also know that I want to be at my best when I sit at my keyboard and I’m not my best when I’m braindead.
Being flexible
The year Scrivener ate a chapter for the first time, my goal was to finish that novel and I couldn’t get my brain to focus on anything other than the crushing disappointment I felt.
So I had to pivot to another project that I literally called NaNo 2018. It was a collection of multiple pieces I was working on just so I could keep writing while I worked through mourning my novel’s chapters. And it was great because it was a low risk work that wouldn’t bear much fruit for years. Just snippets of book ideas that I wanted to collect. This year’s novel was one of the many projects I started that year.
My writing process
My first couple of years of NaNo, I embraced the craziness of starting a new novel with no real prep. I leaned heavily into challenges and dares to get my words in. I failed more than I succeeded.
Over the years, I’ve refined my process to the point where I succeed more than I fail. Because NaNo is such a high word output in such a short period of time, it does force you to think about how you prep and what your writing process looks like. If you need to outline heavily, flying by the seat of your pants isn’t going to happen.
For me, I need to draft before I start typing. My process has evolved over the years and I’m very settled into it now.
Community
Writing is a very solitary endeavor. Most of the time, it is just me and my computer, but during NaNo, I make an effort to get out and be around other writers. Whether it’s the kickoff night or the Night of Scribing Recklessly, I try to do at least one event so I can be around my tribe.
And I think that’s the best part of the entire month: the sense of community. It led me to the online community that I do online sprints with during the rest of the year.
I love the challenge of this month and it stretches my abilities and teaches me about myself.
Do you do NaNoWriMo? What’s your favorite part?
