Thursday 17 October 2013

NaNoWriMo


 

NaNoWriMo


“Oh My God NaNoWriMo is just over 2 weeks away and I’ve done no prep!” At the risk of sounding like Michael Winner; calm down, there’s no need to panic. You don’t need to plan anything if you don’t want to. I plan everything ahead of time, but that’s because it’s how I do it. You may have a story in mind that you want to put to paper, so when NaNo-thingy comes around, just start writing it. You may surprise yourself and find the story develops well on its own.

But if you are like me and have to plan everything, you do still have a fortnight to do so. It’s not the end of the world and you don’t have to rush. Relax, put pen to paper and decide on your story, your characters, your setting etc...You’ll be fine. You may realize aspects to the story you haven’t even thought of yet. If you don’t start on the 1st November, not a problem, just start the next day, or the day after, there’s no rules or regulations to follow. Just write the novel you want to write and enjoy doing it. Because if you don’t enjoy writing it, then what’s the point? I began writing my new novel mid-September and didn’t wait for NaNo-thingy, admittedly because I didn’t know it existed. There’s no time limit, no word count and certainly no deadline, (Unless you’re lucky enough to have a guaranteed publisher before you’ve even started writing.).

I think NaNo-thingy is mainly there to help un-seasoned writers to escape that hideous monster; Procrastination! Having an idea for a story is one thing, but getting the effort to start writing can be very difficult for those who’ve not done it before. It also takes a little courage. There’s always that little voice that says, “What if no-one likes it?” and “How do I start?”, but don’t listen to them. Someone will like your book and someone else won’t. Everyone’s different like that, so don’t be offended if a romantic doesn’t like your tale of horror, or vice versa. Sorry for the heavily over used cliché, but start at the beginning, It’s where most good stories begin.

As for my casual use of ‘NaNo-thingy’ instead of ‘NaNoWriMo’, I’m not trying to belittle it in any way, I think it’s fantastic, I’m just too lazy to type the latter everytime. So tell me what you think.

Read, follow, comment and enjoy. M x

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