How To Win NaNoWriMo in 15 Days

     Last year, I won NaNoWriMo with a couple days to spare, and I was pretty proud of myself.
     THIS year I won NaNoWriMo in HALF the allotted time, and I felt pretty darn great, I tell you what.  Unfortunately I didn't finish my novel in time (I'm too damn long-winded), but I walked away with a certificate and a smile and a good portion of a first draft for a story that I'm really into.
     Of course, if I kept the secrets to my success a secret, it wouldn't exactly behoove all of you writers out there, wondering how you can get not just your NaNo Novel, but ANY of your fast drafting on even faster, so I'm here to spill the beans and teach YOU how to blow the fishes out of the water with the power of your magic writey-downer abilitations.*
     Here's eight tactics YOU can use to win big fast!

*not a word.

  

1.  Cheat

     Okay, so not cheat, exactly, but sort of???
     See, what allowed me to win so quickly was the fact that on the first day of NaNo I was able to log 11,518 words.  No, it's not because I'm some sort of superhuman (I mean, I am totally some sort of superhuman, but that's not how I was able to write so much).  My secret?  I took NaNoPlotMo VERY seriously; I outlined like hell and scribbled down every note and spare thought I had, fleshing out the first half of my novel so vividly that half my job on day one was essentially copy-paste-expound-upon.
     This also meant that, for the first half of my novel at least, I had a clear idea about where I was going, who my players were, etc, so once I hit the ground I hit it rolling, fullspeed downhill with a fire on my ass.
     This is sort of cheating, yes, because all the WRITING is supposed to be done during November, but taking extensive notes is just an expected part of October for us NaNoers, and no one is looking over your shoulder raising their eyebrow at you for "thinking too much," so you do you and take as many notes as you want, comrade, it's your journey and can't no one tell you how to climb that mountain but you!
     (Also, no one can tell you not to write tons of run-ons in your first draft.  NO ONE.)

2.  Don't Look Back

    This is just one of those old classics of the NaNo experience, but still SUPER helpful.  Like, so helpful oh my God, I spent most of last year's NaNo just LEARNING this one, and it's helped in all my drafting since; don't go back and reread.
     It's tempting, I know!  But you must resist the urge.  Go back a chapter or maybe two if you need to at the start of the writing day, to try to kickstart your creativity, remember where you left, etc., but don't go any further back and do not, I repeat, DO NOT, I REPEAT AGAIN FOR FURTHER EMPHASIS, DO.  NOT.  EDIT.  
     I know those words are being real shitlords--they're screaming at you, begging you to come fix your mistakes, taunting you with your imperfections, but don't do it!  It will only slow you down, it could lessen your word count (which is all well and good during editing season, but not when you're drafting, ESPECIALLY not with NaNoWriMo), and you'll lose all your momentum.  Even if you're suffering from a block, you'd be better off getting up and going for a walk, or reading, or watching an hour of TV than risking a trip into the bog of edit hell.
     Don't even look back for details--if you forget a detail, make it up, you can always fix it in post.  And hey, who knows, maybe you'll like the new way better!
     Just, in general, if you can possibly help it, don't look back.  The time for looking back is not while your chainsaw is half-way through the lonely housewife's torso; the time for looking back doesn't come until the last grudge match has been settled and your bloody trail of carnage and slaughter finally matches the tale of woe and revenge set down in the notebook you made to look like that one from Deathnote.  That's when you bust out the bleach and start checking IDs.

3.  Don't worry about POV

     This year, I couldn't decide if I was writing from multiple third person limited or from third person omniscient.  Last year, during Camp NaNo I kept slipping into second person POV, too, and randomly switching tenses.
     This is pretty normal, we all do it to some degree, some more than others--our brain will just randomly switch gear and suddenly a third person story has six paragraphs of "I went to the store today" slapped in the middle.  Don't sweat it.
     This is another thing that can be fixed in post.  If you're not sure what POV you even want the story to be in, just write.  Write whatever comes to mind and deal with the aftermath later.
     That goes for tenses and shit, too.  Just don't worry; again, it can all be fixed in post.  Right now, the most important thing is to get that story out of your goddamn body before it has the chance to escape in a less palpable form, or takes hold of your brain and drives you MAD.

4.  Big casts help

     I'm not saying that big casts are the answer, or that they're right for your particular story, and I'm DEFINITELY not saying that every story needs to be an ensemble.
     What I AM saying is, I had a big cast this year (both years.  I'm a fan of large casts.  Sue me) and it really helped keep my juices flowing--I had a lot to work with, a lot of subplots to dive into, and any time I couldn't figure out what my MC's next move was, I could cut to some of the more minor characters and talk about a subplot for a chapter or two, which allowed me the time to let my MC ruminate on his options and decide what to do next--and, sometimes, for new characters to invent themselves.
     And of course, while writing my MC's scenes, I was able to work out what my side characters were doing, etc., etc., which makes for a good process most of the time.


5.  Set a big word count and follow that shit

     After my eleven thousand word victory I was like HELL FUCKING YES
     But I knew I had to keep working--I told myself that I would write at least three thousand words a day.  I didn't, of course, but I tried to; some days I went over, some days I went under, but because I was so far ahead, it wasn't any problem--even if you don't get off on the huge side of the bed the first morning of NaNoWriMo, exceeding the normal goal is a good thing to shoot for--maybe you write two thousand words a day instead of 1667, maybe three thousand, maybe five thousand!  Whatever you can handle, do that and do it consistently; that way if something happens and you're under one day, it's no big deal.  If you do it enough and for some reason you have to skip a day, again, you have some room under you, no big deal.
     BUUUUUTTTT.....

6.  Don't skip a day

     If you can help it, don't skip.  I know you have those pretty little days' worth of word credits saved up from all your SUPER DUPER WRITE-TASTICNESS, but do your best not to let them get to you.  If you take that day off, it's going to seriously screw with your momentum, which is what fast-drafting is all about.  You gotta go hard bro, 'cause in this game, there's no goin' home.  *Insert Murder Eyes*
     Plus, by skipping a day, your manuscript becomes a little less clear in your mind, details become a little more hazy--if you knew what you were going to do in the next scene, maybe you lose it, or lose part of it, and you risk the dreaded need to (DUN DUN DUUUUN) TURN BACK.  *LOUD MELODRAMATIC GASPING*

7.  Set up a routine that works for you

     I like to work in chunks of several hours at a time, when I can, so I try to get up early and write for a few solid hours before school, before I've expended my creative energy for the day, and then I do my best to squeeze in whatever extra time I can between classes--maybe you work best at night, though, or for fifteen minute intervals throughout the day; maybe the only time you can squeeze it in is while hastily shoveling bologna sandwiches into your chomping maw at the midday hour.
     Whatever works for you, set a time and try to stick to it--then grab whatever extra time you can get your grubby little hands on.  Try to set up a workstation if you can, leave your computer on sleep instead of off so it takes less time to boot up when you feel the desire for a pyre!

8.  Throw shit in there

     Obviously, you don't want to just slam a random thing down for the words, but don't censor or limit yourself.  Use those adverbs and adjectives you're not sure you'll need, you can cut 'em later!; write that introspective diatribe, you can change it later!; give a flashback that explains the entire character that you're pretty sure you'll end up using like four sentences from in the end; you can cut the rest of it later, but at least now you know, and this is a part of fast drafting that, as more of a pantser than a plotter, I love, because now I have all this information about my characters and their lives that I can use later, or not use at all, but at least I can write the character with all this shit in mind!
    And my wordcount is boosted, and no one got hurt**, and all is well.

**Except for all those people you murdered on number 2.

Things Not To Do During Camp NaNoWriMo

     The first half of Camp NaNoWriMo ended nearly a month ago, and I lost by a little more than half my goal.  I'm not proud of this, but I'm going to call it a "Learning Experience" and use it to get a blog post in.  Here's a list of nine things you SHOULDN'T do when embarking on Camp NaNoWriMo.

1. Get sick
        I came down hard with a throat virus in early April that really sent me reeling.  I couldn't talk, I couldn't move, I couldn't do much of anything.  The one thing I COULD do was write--which I did a lot of!  I got something like twelve thousand words written in one business week.
        But then I had to go back to school, and this is where I died.  I had reading to make up, worksheets to fill out, MORE reading to make up, and everything went to hell.  I was still sick when I went back, too, which meant that in addition to scrambling trying to catch up with backwork, I was also exhausted just getting up in the mornings, and my favorite thing to do was come home and sleep, which meant foregoing my daily writing for days at a time.
        Don't get sick when you do NaNo, kids.
    
2. Buy an iPad
        I've never owned an Apple product before, or even a cell phone more high tech than a basic Tracfone, but last month I decided to purchase a used iPad from my boss.  "This will be awesome," I said to myself.  "I'll be able to write my NaNo Novel anywhere I want and not have to worry about transcribing!"
        I did not, you will have inferred, understand how iPads work.
        My intentions were good, but one of the first things I did was go online and download a bunch of Apps that looked cool, and some of them actually were.  The one I wanted most to work properly, however--the word processor--was lackluster and comparatively difficult to figure out, and I ended up spending far more time trying to make my digi-self a rich famous moviestar in the coolest high school university EVER, which cost me precious hours in writing time.
        Since then I've chilled on the games (mostly), and I had a lot of fun but hindsight being 20/20 I know now that it was really a very bad idea right from the get go.  Maybe buying an iPad wasn't the problem in and of itself, but I'd say it's for the best if you not download really fun apps just before you start Camp NaNo.  Probably.
3. Start three plays
        I've never done more than one play at a time before, so I decided that the best thing for me to do would be to jump in and do three at the same time because easing your way in is apparently for chumps.  This, however, was ALSO a giant time suck on this, the month of my daughter's birth (my daughter being the manuscript, you see).  Three days a week since I've been out of the house essentially from eight in the morning to nine or ten at night, which cuts severely into the two-thousand-word-a-day goal I had set for myself.
        I don't regret this, since it's a lot of fun and also my career path, but NaNo was a bad month to START it--as I may have made clear by now, starting things is a hectic and exhausting business which leaves time for almost nothing else.  I had the same commitments this month as last, but this month it was far less taxing, simply because I'd already adjusted to it.
        Maybe just try to avoid starting pretty much ANYTHING, really, during NaNo months.
4. Get Sick
5. Get no sleep
        I have a lot of trouble sleeping most nights, but for some reason I had an especially hard time sleeping in April, which left me too lethargic and dry-minded to write much of anything at all.  Maybe it was because all of the above were tiring me out.  Because that's totally how normal biology works, right?  Yeah.
        It's really important that you get enough sleep to keep yourself healthy, especially on a NaNo month.  Writing fifty thousand words (or whatever your goal was this time around) is a terribly taxing task, and if you continually end up running on empty, your manuscript will suffer.  When your manuscript suffers, the writing gets hard to continue.  When the writing gets hard to continue, it's pretty easy to quit.  And when it's pretty easy to quit, you let the mouse in through the window and it sucks all your blood out through your palm.  And that, children, is why you never give a mouse a cookie.
        Can you tell that I'm tired as I'm writing this?
6. Get Sick
7. Get Sick
8. Get Sick
        Jesus Christ, please do not get sick on NaNo, you will regret it once you go back I promise you take care of yourself stay healthy stay hydrated sleep well don't lick peoples' noses, you don't deserve the loss of word count you are a good person you deserve a finished manuscript
9. Put it off until tomorrow
        When you have thirty days to write sixty thousand words, it's really easy to say "I'll just write four thousand tomorrow to make up for it!"  When you're tired and busy it gets even easier, and once you've pushed the deadline back once it's easier to do it again--and again, and again, and again.  Before you know it the month is up and you have almost nothing to show for it but a husk of an MS and some progress on a game you'll honestly probably delete in like a month.
        Sometimes it's unavoidable, and as I've said before, you don't need to beat yourself up about it--but you should do your best to avoid it.  When you dedicate yourself to a daily goal, do whatever is in your power to reach it as quickly as you can.  Write in the morning, write throughout the day, write when you get home from work, write, write, write, write, write.
        Because Write Is Right, and the only one you hurt by blowing off your goals is you.