Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Nanowrimo

I had planned to talk about the Emerald City Writers Conference which I attended this past weekend. But my brain is a little frazzled because of some non-writing stuff going on, so I haven't had a chance to really write down my thoughts from the conference (probably next week).

Since my blog-compatriots have talked about Nanowrimo, I thought I'd talk about it too. I've attempted Nano for the last few years but never finished. The closest I came was in 2006 or 2007 when I wrote about 20,000 words on an erotic sci-fi vampire novel (I actually looked at it recently and think there might be some salvageable stuff in there).

I think the idea of pushing yourself to write 50,000 words in a month is great, but I rarely work that quickly. In years past, I've started Nano and then after about a week get burned out on by the pace. My plan instead is to set my own writing goal for the month. I don't know what that will be yet. I might set my sights on writing 25,000 words in the month or writing X minutes a day. Either way, my bigger overall goal is just to write every day in the month.

5 comments:

Colleen M. said...

I agree - I'm planning on "doing nano" but not at the pace they suggest. I want to use November to develop the habit of writing every day. I read somewhere once that it takes six weeks (sometimes longer) for something to develop into a habit. With winter and all that comes with it (darkness and the weather) not too far off it's easy for me to come home and just crash on the couch in front of the TV - but if I have a habit of writing hopefully that will make it hard to break

Katie Caughill said...

As someone who's written 50k words in a month, I'm gonna tell you it's not for everybody. In fact, I'm thinking about not doing nanowrimo as much as setting a word count goal to meet everyday in November.

So what you're thinking is a good idea!

Sheila said...

I think the fact that you plan to write every day is a better -- and more important -- goal than any word count. I agree that 50K words in a month is not for everyone.

We all know that in writing there is no one right answer that fits everyone. Go with what works for you!

Andrea said...

I agree with the others that just writing every day is what's important. While I will be shooting for the 50k goal, I am more focused with getting in a writing groove regardless of final word count.

Andrea said...
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