To NaNo or Not?
Hello!
It’s officially October. Time for fall weather, Halloween, colorful leaves, pumpkins, maybe a little bit of snow, and, most importantly, preparations for NaNoWriMo. *insert dramatic theme music*
(For those of you who don’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, which takes place in November.) Writers all around the globe are preparing to take on the challenge of writing a full novel—50,000 words—in 30 days. Outlines are being started and finished. Characters are being developed. Pens uncapped. Laptops opened. Preparations for the mass craziness that is NaNo.
But some writers aren’t preparing for this chaos. Oddly enough, this year I’m part of that group of writers who are going to go through November like normal.
I did NaNo last year. It was a super fun experience, but also crazy, stressful at times, draining, but an experience nonetheless. I had just begun to write seriously, and my NaNo project was my first “big” writing project. I made an outline, developed characters, and prepared as much as I could…
Except my story was way too short, so I spontaneously added in a pirate-cringy-romance subplot. In the end, I made it to 50k, but had a very very incohesive story that I will not open up from the depths of my computer for at least another ten years. But it was fun and exciting and I felt so proud to have written a novel.
But this year, I’ve come to the hard decision that I’m not going to be able to do NaNo this year. Because of sibling birthdays, traveling, Thanksgiving, and a whole bunch of other stuff (Why should anything not happen in November?), I’ve come to the conclusion that throwing NaNo in the pie of chaos probably isn’t the best idea.
And coming to this decision wasn’t easy. The logical side of my brain kept saying, “Do not even think about NaNo. There is too much other stuff going on.” But then I’d see my friends and writers preparing for NaNo, and the other side of my brain said “Why not do it? Think of how much motivation you had. It was tons of fun.” So I came up with a few ways to figure out if NaNo was actually a good idea to do.
Do you have a story idea?
I think having an outline, or at least a good idea of how your story is going to go, will help a lot. I had a much more outlined story for Camp NaNo in April than my story in November, which helped with the overall cohesiveness of the story.
Craziness in November?
Do you have millions of family members visiting for Thanksgiving? Are you the one traveling?
November is a crazy month. With Thanksgiving, snowstorms, and preparations for Chrimstas, it can be pretty busy. One thing I did this year was write out all of what was happening in November. When I saw just how big the list was, and the fact that it could and probably will keep growing, it helped my brain be a little more convinced that this wasn’t a good idea.
Would it be a good idea to do it?
I learned a lot over NaNo last year. Persistence, time management, how much outlining it takes to outline a novel. And it helped boost my motivation to actually finish a really long project. I got more invested in the writing community, and made some really good friends.
There are reasons that NaNo can do more harm than good. But it’s also a really fun event. There are also other options too. Camp NaNo takes place in April and July, and you make your own goal for it. You can also be a “NaNo rebel” and make your own goal for November.
But, overall, it’s important to assess if NaNo would be a good idea to do. NaNo isn’t something that’s easily done during craziness. It takes lots of commitment -1,667 words a day- time, and mental energy. NaNo was a super fun experience for me, and I definitely want to do it again, but I don’t want to get burned out from writing and then not write for months.
But, in the end, this is all up to you. I can’t tell you that doing NaNo is a bad or good idea. It’s all up to you to decide if NaNo is something that can be done this year. I hope these tips helped you to decide for yourself. Are you doing NaNo this year? Have you done NaNo or Camp NaNo before? Until next time!
-Hannah
