Life After NaNo

Part Five of the NaNoWriMo series by Jeanette O'Hagan

One more day to go and NaNoWriMo is over for this year at least.  For many of us, it has been a wild and exhilarating ride. There have been frustrations, obstacles, disappointments, wins, triumphs and laughter. I’ve particularly enjoyed sharing the journey with my fellow NaNo-nauts as we cheered each over on, commiserated with the difficulties and shared some wacky humour.

The Journey

To be honest, this has been my toughest NaNo. I’m currently 1461 words off goal (I’ve got one more day to ace it, right?). I was flat out before NaNo started – so felt underprepared going in, I was away for all or part of three weekends in November — with craft camp, writers’ retreats and festivals. And, I’m in the final throes of publishing two anthologies (Let the Sea Roar, Glimpses of Light) with rapidly approaching release dates, plus involved in the launch of another this coming Saturday (Another Time, Another Place). Despite it all, it’s been a blast giving priority to writing words my current novel, to rediscovering my story and allowing it to take me on a journey. So whether I make the 50,000 words tomorrow or not, it’s been worth it.

I know others have struggled against greater obstacles, some insurmountable. For one friend, it was her husband's unexpected serious health crisis. For others, it has been their own health or work, study and family commitments.

One fellow traveller quipped. ‘My learning this year is doing NaNo in November is nuts,’ while another said, ‘My learning point: don't sign up for NaNo and a writing course that takes a day a week in the same month.’ Some fellow Nano-nauts had great difficulty in giving their internal editor a well-deserved vacation (at least until December), while others took the rebel route, using the month for a variety of writing projects or for editing. NaNoWriMo is after all what you make it.

Yet despite these obstacles, most agreed they wrote more words than they would have otherwise, in many cases achieving personal bests.

Some even powered through the words, writing 80,000 words or more or completing the 50,000 a week early. 

But whether participants achieved a phenomenal 80,000, a fantastic 50,000 or a solid and substantial 30,000 or a respectable 10,000 words for the month of November, for most it has been a valuable experience.

One participant said, ‘Having done it before meant I also knew the importance of a plan.’

Another said, ‘Best thing I got from the month was getting back into a disciplined writing routine.'

A third commented, ‘One thing NaNo has taught me is that it's possible to write reasonably well and quickly. For me the learning has been about my process not the result. I have developed a better routine and a better understanding of what inspires me.’

So what next?

Now that NaNoWriMo is (almost) finished — what happens next? Is there life after NaNo? Here’s some suggestions:

• Celebrate your wins — yes, minor or major, they all are worthy of celebrating :)
• Take a well-earned rest (for a few days at least).
• Finished your novel? Do yourself a favour and resist the urge to publish it on Kindle tomorrow.
• Haven’t quite finished your novel? Keep writing.
• Edit, edit, edit &, if necessary, re-write.

Your NaNo project is first draft — think structural edit and the other levels of editing, give it to beta-readers, get a professional edit — cut and polish your diamond in the rough.

• Take advantages of the discounts and offers available for NaNo winners.
• Bring the things you learnt — about the daily discipline of writing, of making it a commitment, about writing faster, of writing even when it feels like Chinese water torture, of being in the flow – into your normal writing process.
• Think ahead — clear your schedule, have your project planned for Camp July or NaNoWriMo next year.

Remember — whatever your final total was, whether you had to abandon the project mid-way or finished with more than 50,000 words — you are a winner! 

You have words on the page, you have lessons learned, you have a new insight into yourself as a writer. The only way not to win, was never to have started.

Part One: What is NaNoWriMo? 3rd August 2015

Part Two:Why do NaNo? (Pros and Cons)  7 September 2015 

Part Three: Preparing for NaNo   5 October 2015 

Part Four: Ready, Set, Go  2 November 2015 

Part Five:  Is there life after NaNo?  30 November 2015(That’s this one) 

Jeanette O'Hagan was thrilled to receive second prize in the FAWQ Poetry prize this year. She has a short stories published or about to be published Tied in Pink Romance Anthology (2014), Another Time Another Place, Let the Sea Roar, Glimpses of Light and Like a Girl, and has poems in the Poetica Christi’s Inner Child and Brio (FAWQ). She has practiced medicine, studied communication, history and theology.  She cares for her children, has just finished her Masters of Arts (Writing) at Swinburne University and is writing her Akrad's fantasy fiction series.  You can read some of her short fiction here. 

You can find her at her Facebook Page or at Goodreads or on her websites  JennysThread.com or Jeanette O'Hagan Writes .

13 #badwritingadvice Tips to Winning NaNoWriMo

By Iola Goulton

We are now most of the way through National Novel Writing Month, which means many of our members are in the middle of their last-ditch attempt to win Nanowrimo 2015: by writing an original manuscript of 50,000 words or longer in the calendar month of November.

I've collated thirteen foolproof tips to help those who don’t think they’re going to win:

1. Always use adverbs with dialogue tags. 

Ignore the writing instructors who say it’s a bad idea because adverbs are telling when you should be showing. In fact, if using one adverb is a bad idea, do better: use two.

2. In fact, use adverbs liberally.

Use them generously, magnanimously throughout your manuscript. This simple tip can easily and effortlessly add a thousand words or more to your Nano winner. Don’t worry about whether they fit the context literally or figuratively. You can effortlessly make them fit beautifully.

3. Use lots of meaningless filler words. 

Use words like really, quite, just, and very. They really don’t add anything very useful to the plot, but are quite handy for just making a sentence longer.

4. Repeat yourself. 

A lot. Readers are often trying to read your book while they watch TV and try and cook dinner, so it’s easier for them to keep up with the plot and characters if you say the same thing in two different ways. It helps them keep up with the plot. Sometimes they’re distracted or not paying attention so it’s important to repeat yourself. A lot.

5. Mix beats with dialogue tags

“I’m sorry,” Joe said as he staggered into the wall.

instead of

“I’m sorry.” Joe staggered into the wall.

Mixing beats and dialogue tags is another subtle form of repetition through telling, and readers love repetition, especially through telling. And it is ten words instead of seven. Bonus!

6. Load your manuscript up with back story. 

Everyone knows that our characters traits and habits are often a result of their upbringing, so what better way of showing readers how imperfect your characters are than to show their upbringing in painstaking and minute detail (more than once if possible, as readers love repetition).

Even better, show how their parents and grandparents were raised, to show why they are such messed-up characters. And don’t limit yourself to your main characters: of course we want to see how the homeless guy who appears in one scene ended up on the streets because his grandfather kicked his mother out of the house after she got pregnant.

7. Never use contractions. 

“Don’t” counts as one word, while “do not” counts as two. Sure, a contraction-free manuscript is annoying to read, but Nano isn’t about writing a book someone would want to read. It’s about writing 50,000 words as fast as you can and uploading them to Kindle on 3 December.

8. Use spaced scene dividers. 

Just leaving a blank line doesn’t add to your word count, but *** counts as one word and * * * counts as three.

This is an excellent tip to employ if you’re prone to headhopping: simply add a scene break every few paragraphs, you can both increase your word count and be sure you’re not headhopping. If you don’t know what headhopping is, now is not the time to learn. Just add those * * * scene breaks between every second paragraph and no one will ever notice whether you’re headhopping or not.

9. Suspension points

Use lots of suspension points, and make sure you’re using the US variety ( . . . ) because they count as three words while the Alt-0133 version (…) only counts as one. If you’re clever, you should be able to get two sets of suspension points . . . or three . . . in each passage of dialogue . . . more if your characters are upset . . . or rant a lot.

10. Pick your tense. 

Some authors have trouble with tense, and never know when to use past, present, future, subjunctive, conjunctive, just plain junctive . . . the solution is simple. Put them all in, and then no one can possibly complain you’ve got it wrong , you’re getting it wrong . . . or you’re going to get it wrong.

11. Use that.

Remember that the word “that” can be added to so many sentences without that impacting the meaning. If you can add that once or twice in a sentence, do that. So serves a similar purpose also.

It’s so useful, especially at the beginning of sentences. Also, don’t forget to add also to the ends of your sentences, in dialogue also. As well works as well.

12. So don’t refer to your characters by name. 

That name is only one word, and you can easily add that necessary word count by referring to that character as “the blond boy”, “the tall boy”, or (for extra impact!) “the tall blond boy” instead. If you must refer to characters by name, perhaps because you’ve been silly enough to have two tall blond boys as characters, refer to them by their full name. With the number after it: Severus Ignatius Leslie Lloyd Yellowstone III.

13. So don’t use adjectives in the same sentence as the noun. 

Instead, move the adjectives to an entire sentence of their own, like this:

The room had three chairs and a table. The walls were white. The table was brown. The chairs were red.

instead of
The room had three red chairs and a brown table.

That’s sixteen words, where your writing instructor would have used a miserly ten. I’m sure you can do better than that also.


What other #badwritingadvice hints and tips would you like to share that will help your fellow writers win Nanowrimo 2015?

About Iola Goulton

I am a freelance editor specialising in Christian fiction, and you can find out more about my services at my website, or follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest  or Tsu.

I love reading, and read and review around 150 Christian books each year on my blog. I'm a Top 25 Reviewer at Christian Book, in the Top 1% of reviewers at Goodreads, and have an Amazon Reviewer Rank that floats around 2500.

Preparing for NaNo

by Jeanette O'Hagan

Part Three of NaNoWriMo series

Are you playing with the idea of signing up for NaNoWriMo this November? 

For the first time or maybe for the tenth? Perhaps you are cycling through all the reasons why it won’t work but, admit it, there’s a part of you that’s tempted – just a little. You wonder, what might I achieve? Maybe …

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been doing a series on NaNo – first explaining what it is (here) and then exploring the pros and cons (here). By now you’ve probably worked out that I’m a NaNo convert—I’ve done three November 50,000 word challenges and two Camp Julys and it’s been exhilarating and productive, ending on a NaNo high each time.

But, perhaps 50,000 words sounds a daunting, almost impossible, challenge. So okay, you may only manage 30,000 or 10,000 or 5,000— but you’ll still have written more words than you probably would have done otherwise. And if you usually write poetry or children’s books, or really need to edit your current first draft, you can still join as a NaNo Rebel (see here, here & here) with no loss of face.

So, what have you got to lose?

If you are thinking about signing up –it's a great idea to start preparing now. The more prepared you are, the more you will get out of November.

The first step in preparing for NaNoWriMo — is to make the decision to join & tell someone about it J

Post it up on Facebook, tweet it, tell the world or just tell your best friend or writing partner — you will be doing NaNo this year! Round of applause.

The second step is to sign up. 

Officially the sign up for 2015 NaNo starts 5 October (or possibly 6 October in Australasia) – perfect timing J  

And the third is to find a NaNo community

Enlist friends who will cheer you on, commiserate with you when things get tough, urge you on when you feel like giving up, engage in some friendly rivalry and celebrate your triumphs along the way.

The NaNoWriMo community provides a number of avenues for camaraderie, from connecting up with friends as NaNo writing buddies, to forums, to social media, to local events (including camps and write-ins). 

This year, ACW is forming our own NaNoWriMo Facebook group to provide a fun place to encourage each other as we do NaNo together—the ACW NaNo-nauts. 

The fourth step is to clear your schedule in November and make writing a priority.

Well, okay, that may not be possible. My November is already cluttered with camps, family activities, deadlines and projects, just like previous years. Despite this, each year I’ve been able to make NaNo a priority, with the goal to write each day. I’ve had to miss some days, but then written more to make-up on other days. 

The fifth step — work out what helps you to be most productive.

What preparations help you best may well depend on whether you are a plotter, a punster or a tweener; a NaNo regular or rebel.

Some thoughts:

Plotter and Tweeners

Decide which project you want to work on.

Start preparing your plot outlines, timelines, character sheets, setting and do necessary research.

Maybe invest in writing programs like Scrivener or Novel Factory.

The less you have to work out where you are going with your novel or what scene you need to write next, the more productive you will be.

Don’t despair if you don’t get time to fully plan everything. You can still write out synopses or summaries of the scenes as you go. And, unless the research is crucial to the plot, you can leave a placeholder and come back to fill in the details later.

Pansters

Perhaps you prefer to start with a blank page come November 1^st —willing to follow wherever the muse leads you.

Even so, you could start banking up those creative coals—reading, looking at images, activities or exploring places that inspire. You may also want to set up your writing space, clear your desk, stock up on food, prepare a writing playlist, and get tasks like household chores that are likely to distract you from writing out of the way as much as possible.

Rebels

Think about what goals you wish to achieve and how. How will you measure your achievements (perhaps with word equivalents) and what planning may be necessary before hand.

The NaNoWriMo site has an extensive resources to help in preparation—so check it out here.

In just under 4 weeks the fun begins. Whose in? I’m really looking forward to doing NaNo with you J

Next blog post, we look at getting the most out of November. And remember, we’d love you to join us in ACW NaNo-nauts — for camaraderie, encouragement and a touch of friendly rivalry along the way.

Part One: What is NaNoWriMo? 3rd August 2015

Part Two:Why do NaNo? (Pros and Cons)  7 September 2015 

Part Three: Preparing for NaNo   5 October 2015 (That’s this one) 

Part Four: Ready, Set, Go  2 November 2015

Part Five:  Is there life after NaNo?  30 November 2015

Image courtesy of SweetCrisis at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Jeanette O’Hagan enjoys writing fantasy fiction, poetry, blogging and editing. She is currently writing her Akrad’s Legacy Series – a Young Adult secondary world fantasy fiction with adventure, courtly intrigue and romantic elements. She has short stories and poems published in Tied in Pink romance anthology (December 2014) and Poetica Christi’s Inner Child (July 2015), in several upcoming anthologies, and on her website Jeanette O'Hagan Writes. 

She has a medical degree, a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Theology and has completed her Master of Arts (Writing) with Swinburne University of Technology in June 2015. Jeanette loves reading, painting, travel, catching up for coffee with friends and pondering on the meaning of life. She lives in Brisbane with husband, two school-aged children and two cats.

Tied in Pink (Romance anthology for Breast Cancer Research) http://www.amazon.com/Tied-In-Pink-anthology-Research-ebook/dp/B00QZBAP0S

You can find her

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JeanetteOHaganAuthorAndSpeaker

Her websites http://jeanetteohagan.com/ http://jennysthread.com/ http://fantasytrekkers.com/ 

GoodReads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9833645.Jeanette_O_Hagan