Nanowrimo
That is something that sounds very familiar to writers and it sounds familiar to non-writers but they have writer friends and have to hear them whine scream yell about how awful it is going and how behind they are or right on schedule but they are slowly dying on the inside. Or you are just someone who is reading this and has no idea what the hell it is.
Nanowrimo basically is an international challenge for writers around the world. Write 50k words in a month. Yes, 50 thousand words in a month. However, although it is a very big number if you do the math and shorten how much you have to write daily… It’s only 1667 or something words a day which isn’t really that bad if you ask me. This challenge is for people who want to write but never make the time or just need some type of motivation or someone like me who lacks discipline when it comes to writing and the outcome is if I don’t succeed in this challenge I failed in life… Ok, it sounds bad but on the inside it makes me want to write the 50k words. It’s like when someone tells you you can’t do something so you do it to prove you can. Yeah, that’s me just with me and myself.
So in honour of Nanowrimo and my first time ever truly doing the challenge here is some advice from someone who did something like this but it wasn’t NaNoWriMo. Also writing Nanowrimo is actually so hard to remember…
The first thing is self-care.
I always talk about self-care and how it is truly needed in life. This writing challenge is a big thing especially when you are not used to writing 50k words in a month. Always make sure you’re taking care of yourself first. Take walks, watch your fav movies and even treat yourself to food and dessert or even a book. This challenge may be really important to you but you can’t succeed if you are burning out.
The second thing 50k words is a lot
It’s a lot of words and even when you do the math and see that you only have to write 1k ish a day that’s still a lot sometimes and I can admit 1kwords a day for me sounds really hard. Back in high school that was no problem when it came to writing books but now it actually takes me to really try hard to get to 1k words. So if you can’t do 50k words in a month do 20k or 10k or 30k especially if it’s your first time partaking in this challenge. 50k is a lot never let someone tell you it’s not.
The third writing itself.
Writing is a bitch. Its hell. There will be days when you will really want to rip out your hair and there are other days when you will stare at your writing and wonder why you had to choose this god-awful job for life. As the famous quote that gets tossed around the writing community is that it can always be changed. ALWAYS. Sometimes the writing that you think is horrible that night is actually pretty good when you read it the next day. Not all old work is crap sometimes it’s really good and wonders how your sleepy brain did it. But everything can always be fixed.
This is a huge challenge and what makes it fun is that I know writers all around the world are staring at their computers today and for the next 30 days and will be pulling out their hair while dying on the inside. That will be all the writers. So we are not alone when it comes to thinking we are awful writers. There are more crazy writers out there.
This month is to challenge yourself and see how far you can go with writing. The first week will be the best. The second week is alright. In the third week, you will start to slowly go insane and in the last week, you will turn into a skeleton trying to type.
This month is just sitting down and finding time to write. The end result besides hating writing and wanting to have a break is that you will come out next month with another draft finished and that is a very big deal.
To the writers. I wish you the very best and I hope you succeed with this year’s NaNoWriMo. Just have to keep trying and keep putting words down and always remind yourself it can always be fixed later on.
