9 Questions to Examine Your Writing Habits

Becoming a writer is simple: Start writing. There is nothing more elaborate to it than that. So, it's not surprising how events like NaNoWriMo attract so many participants. It's all about getting your butt in the chair—and writing.

I'm a fan of NaNoWriMo myself, taking part every year since 2014, becoming a municipal liaison (NaNoWriMo's representative for my region) in 2015. In that time, I've noticed a few habits that writers have during this season.

It's common for writers to decide that the best approach to getting more writing done is by ignoring everything else that might be going on in their lives—including the family. I've been there. I've done it. And let me tell you that it's not sustainable.

Whatever schedule writers come up for the NaNoWriMo season works in the beginning, but as life carries on—interrupting us—things start to fall apart, and we start to fall behind in our daily goals.

"I'll just make it up tomorrow."

Yeah, I've said this to myself too, countless times. But again, I've noticed that when we struggle to meet our daily goals as it is, adding yesterday's goal to today's goal only makes things worse, adding unnecessary pressure—and making us cranky and a nightmare to live with.

So much for working our writing life into our family life.

For NaNoWriMo, word counts or daily habits?

I took part in my first NaNoWriMo challenge in 2014. I was still finding my feet as a fiction writer, even though I had been writing fiction since 2008. But that first NaNoWriMo, I was determined to develop my daily writing routine. Challenging myself to produce a decent word count every day seemed like a good idea.

During NaNoWriMo 2014, I hit the required 50,000 words by day 11. I had finished drafting that novel by day 16, and it clocked in at over 65,000 words—still missing all the action scenes. By the end of that month, I had written in the order of 95,000 words, scenes that formed the guts to three different novels in my high fantasy series (which is still sitting in the metaphorical drawer).

Since then, I have taken part in every single NaNoWriMo and CampNaNoWriMo event, and I am now the municipal liaison for both the Christchurch, New Zealand and the New Zealand Elsewhere regions.

Yes, I am a fan of NaNoWriMo.

But as I've become more comfortable with my writing habits, I've noticed an ethos that seems to accompany many NaNoWriMo participants that can actually be damaging to a long-term writing career.

There are some writers who take the 50,000-word-count challenge to extremes, trying to write 50,000 words in one night. No joke. In my home region of Christchurch, New Zealand, there is always at least one who forgoes sleep to achieve such a crazy feat.

In my opinion, the writers who do this are not simply crazy, but are missing the point.

The focus of NaNoWriMo has become so wrapped up in word counts that many participants seem to have lost sight of the original intention behind NaNoWriMo—to write the first draft of a novel.

It's time to shake up the word-count mindset and give renewed life to the original idea by changing the measurable goal.

Are you with me?

Fast Write Now! Edit Hell Later!

It's November. All around the world, writers are embarking on the NaNoWriMo challenge — aiming to write a minimum of 50,000 words in 30 days. The writing community often finds ways to come out of random hidey holes to write in groups, both online and offline. To some, the whole challenge is a daunting task, but trust me, by taking part in NaNoWriMo, you'll discover aspects of your own writing habits that you either need to change or enhance, making writing a habit.

Every year, I share my thoughts about how aiming for the high word counts shouldn't be your ultimate goal. Yes, to win the prizes from NaNoWriMo, you need to complete 50,000 words, but with the award system being 100% honesty based, anyone can reach 50,000 words. Sorry, folks, but I stand by my view: the real goal of NaNoWriMo is to develop writing habits that will carry you through into your future writing career.

With that in mind, we need to address certain practices that will help you write fast now, but avoid the editing hell later.

Refueling the Writing Muse

This #NaNoWriMo, don’t focus just on word counts.

As the clock clicks over into November 1st, writers around the world will embark on the NaNoWriMo challenge.

No doubt, some of you are wondering what NaNoWriMo is. Well, as a writer, you commit yourself to writing 50,000 words in one month — you commit to writing a complete first draft of a novel. For some, it is a daunting goal, but as someone who has taken part in every NaNoWriMo and CampNaNoWriMo event since 2014, I can tell you that it's worth the challenge and effort.

Every year, without fail, there will be a few who work at insane rates, pumping out 50,000 words within the first few days. Some even achieve this within the first 24 hours. No, I'm not exaggerating. Within my home region, there is always at least one, frequently two or three, with another two or three who hit 50,000 words within the first week. However, I actually feel sad for the ones who rush to pump out those 50,000 words in such a short time, because in my opinion they have totally missed the point behind NaNoWriMo.

The real goal of NaNoWriMo is to spend an entire month writing your novel, aiming to complete it. If you finish early, you go back and flesh out some of the scenes. And if hit 50,000 words early but still haven't finished the novel, you keep going until you've written the words The End. You write every day, forming a habit for writing that will carry you through into December and beyond.

NaNoWriMo is just around the corner

It's that time of year again. November is almost here. For some, this means that the holiday silly season is about to begin, but for many writers, November is an extremely important time of the year. November is NaNoWriMo.

For those who don't know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, although, it really should be international. Basically, writers commit the month of November to their writing, aiming to write a minimum of 50,000 words within one month. It may sound like a lot of words to some, but the first Harry Potter is 76,944 words.

NaNoWriMo is FREE to join, but the benefits of the program go beyond the prizes that winners get at the end of the month. The community of NaNoWriMo is huge — truly international. There are motivational posts from established writers (like Grant Faulkener, Neil Gaiman and Brandon Sanderson, just to name a few). You have access to the community forums, and there are events that are run within local regions.

To join, just go to the NaNoWriMo website and sign up. To get access to everything, you just join, but if you want to be in for the prizes at the end of November, don't forget to specify a project.

Time to Add Zombies to Your Manuscript

We are almost midway through the month and many writers are pushing themselves toward their NaNoWriMo goals. It might be just to write the 50,000 words to become a winner. Or maybe they're pushing themselves that much further to complete a full first draft within one month. Regardless, it is roughly about this time of the month when many writers lose steam and they feel their stories are running flat.

Time to add zombies.

It's an old saying, one that relates to how some writers deal with that age-old problem called writer's block. Some writers will take the phrase literally and add flesh-eating monsters into their manuscript. Why not? This is NaNo. Anything can happen in our manuscripts. However, those monsters only suit certain genres and only a fraction of the stories in those genres at that.

No... The phrase "just add zombies" means much more than that.

Developing the habit of writing…

Right now, writers from around the world have pledged themselves to either the NaNoWriMo or CampNaNoWriMo challenge. They’ve signed their lives away, at least for remainder of the month, determined to write 50,000 words within the span of 30 days. (For CampNaNoWriMo, they have elected to work toward something much smaller.) 50,000 words may sound like a lot, but it really isn’t. In many cases, it’s not even a full novel. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was 76,944 words.

So, 50,000 words in 30 days… For some, it can seem like a scary number, but it’s only 1,667 words a day. But this is where things can start to go awry.Read More→

Struggling with #NaNoWriMo word-counts? Maybe you’re trying too hard.

We have just crossed the mid-month point and you’re looking at those word counts. Some of you are starting to freak out. Maybe you haven’t hit 25000 words yet and are seeing that you need to write over 2000 words per day to make it on-time. Maybe when you sit down at the computer to write (or with the pen and paper if that is your method) you find that only 200 words grace the page, and you’ve been at if for hours. Maybe you just stare at the blank page and your mind goes blank as well. Or, the worst of all, maybe your story doesn’t excite you like it did when you started. Well, you know what… These are all things that happen to every writer. They’ve happened to me too. But there are some simple easy things that you can do to get out of this rut and get back on track for NaNoWriMo.

You may have a high total word count left to write and your required daily count to hit that 50000-word target is getting higher by the day. The first thing that you need to do is forget about the total word count and those mounting required daily limits. If you keep staring at that big number of words left to write, you’ll never make it. There is a philosophy out there that the most successful people are the ones that have the ability to take every problem and break it down into smaller chunks. Let’s face it. You can’t add 2 + 2 together and have it mean anything unless you have a concept of what 2 is in the first place.

Make no mistake about it, 50000 is a big number. Can you imagine what you could do with $50,000? Just imagine the goodies you can buy with that. Write it down. Look at that… You’re writing again.

What? You were reading, not writing? Should I shake my head now, or later?

No, seriously. Here’s a little trick that I’ve started using this year with the WriMos in my region.Read More→