Gearing Up for November NaNoWriMo 2023 — National Novel Writing Month
Endurance Writing
The well ran dry this morning. I began writing with drivel. I continued with drivel. And, finally, I gave up on drivel. I turned to domestic things. I did a load of laundry in the kitchen sink and hung it out on the patio and in the bathroom. Then, I ate breakfast. Then, I watched some YouTube videos. Then, I washed my hair, and finally, I had a piece of banana nut bread.
Wow. It’s 3:40 p.m., and my day is pretty much done. I did absolutely nothing. What a letdown. Yesterday, I pounded out five articles, the most I’ve ever done in one day. I’m in the process of gearing up for NaNoWriMo in November, and I want to have stories scheduled, lined up, and circling from the middle of October through the end of November so I can concentrate on the larger story of a novel. If I plan them for every other day, I can have all those bases covered. I’ll need about 20 of them, I’m shooting for 23. Maybe moving into December with them. I’m also figuring on writing 60,000 words during November for NaNoWriMo instead of 50,000 words which would make it 2,000 words a day that I would need to write.
I can do 2,000 words a day. It’s basically what I did yesterday with all those stories I wrote. In fact, I probably wrote more than 2,000 words a day.
Here is a list of what some other published writers write in a day.
Stephen King — In earlier days, Stephen King wrote about 2,000 words a day. Now, it’s 1,000 words a day over a period of four hours. In his book On Writing, Stephen King said he ventured out into the desert and dug up ideas.
Jack London would write 1,500 words a day. He said you can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Mark Twain wrote 1,400 to 1,800 words a day over a period of four or five hours.
I figured pounding out five articles a day would help to prepare me to write during NaNoWriMo in November. I haven’t yet figured out what I want to write about, but there is time for that. In past NaNo’s, I didn’t know what I would write about until I sat down to write on November 1. This time around, I’m going to start that planning process around the middle of October.
I also have a decision to make. Which program am I going to use to write during NaNoWriMo, and will I utilize the program Plottr to start the ball rolling for planning purposes? There are six or so YouTube videos to watch on the Plottr website. I bought it at last year’s NaNoWriMo with a participant’s discount, but I never used it.
I looked, and Plottr costs $139 now; however, if you sign up for NaNoWriMo (it’s free, people), you can get a 20% discount on Plottr, which would make it $111 US. I’ve put a link to all the different discounts you can get this November if you participate in NaNoWriMo. Even if you sign up and only write 500 words, you can still take advantage of most of the discounts. Winners sometimes get deeper discounts.
I am most comfortable using Word to write, but when documents get on the heavy side, my experience has been that Word starts being unstable. I like both Scrivener and Atticus, both purchased at discounts in previous NaNo’s. However, Scrivener got a little unstable once for me. Atticus might be the better choice. I liked Scrivener better than I liked Atticus, though both are good programs. It’s the instability that bothers me.
I am not concerned about the choices I have to make. I trust that when the time comes, I will have figured it all out.
The Links: WordCounter.net Plottr On Writing by Stephen King NaNoWriMo Discounts