Perfect timing for this topic, considering that NaNoWriMo starts this weekend. Whether you decide to participate or not, it’s a good excuse to start writing…and keep writing. Setting the habit of writing every day is one of the most recommended activities in writing of any sort, but is that even possible? Of course, it is. As with any other habit you plan to develop, it will take a bit of effort, especially at first. Think back to your first visit to the gym. Painful, wasn’t it? And you never wanted to do it again…but you did.
It may not be a daily habit for many of us, but you still go stretch those muscles every so often—do the same for your mental muscles—the more you do it, the easier it gets. As with the gym, set aside some time…each day. As little as twenty minutes can work, but if you manage to get a full hour, you’ll accomplish much more. The first few days, you may end up just sitting there staring at a blank screen, but once the ideas start flowing, it will amaze you how much you’ll accomplish. The trick is to stop at the end of the day in the middle of a scene…in the middle of a paragraph…in the middle of a sentence. When you return the next day, you’ll be impatient to get back and finish that bit.
Write, just write
Now, all you are doing is writing. Don’t scroll back to read…at least not farther than needed to get back into the scene. Reading…and editing…are far off in the future. Worry about them later, much later. Don’t concern yourself with perfection either. Completion is your goal, not a wonderful book. It’s reasonable, even probable, that your novel stinks. That’s normal. In fact, if you accept that your novel won’t be any good, all the better! When you get to the slow spot in the middle, give it a kick. Add in something you hadn’t planned on—a car crash, a talking dog, a lover from the past—just keep writing
If you follow the NaNoWriMo plan, you should be done with 50,000 words by the end of the month. Don’t worry if you don’t get that far…or if it takes you a bit longer. The plan is to finish. If your story is shorter than some, that’s fine. If you take three or four months to get to the end, that’s outstanding as well. Just finishing and you are ahead of 99% of the world. How many of your friends can say they’ve written a novel? Odds are, they are the ones who will soon be bragging that they know someone who has: YOU.
Done, now what?
The next step is to put that novel in a box and hide it somewhere. Don’t look at it, don’t share it, don’t even mention that you have it. Instead, start writing the next one. Yes, start your second novel right now. You have the habit of writing daily—use it! Keep those mental muscles active—you’ll find it to be much easier this time. The words will come with ease, the plot will unfold before you, when you get to that sticky spot in the middle, you’ll continue because you’ve done it before. You know you can do it…again.
In six months or so, after you’ve finished the second one, you are allowed to pull out that first one and gawk at all the problems you used to have. If you feel like it, you can go over that first one and clean it up, but that’s not necessary…just having it in hand gives you the strength and will power to continue, and if you toss it, you’ll still have learned from it. Take your second one and move forward. Congrats!