The Official (Unofficial) Guide to Losing NaNoWriMo

Good morning, Cyberspace!!!

Today I’d like to talk to y’all about one of the most soul-shattering wonderful, most depressing magical, most time-consuming amazing things in the world:

NaNoWriMo!!!

So for those of you who still don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, here’s the lowdown.

NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) takes place in the beautiful month of November, and it is where writers from all across the globe struggle to write 50,000 words in just 30 days, all while eating tons of Halloween candy and trying not to go completely insane.

To the non-writer, NaNoWriMo can be seen as a strange, almost painful ritual of torture that the writer-folk inflict upon themselves, but to us writers, we know it is so much more than that. It is our chance to finally break though that procrastination and actually write something.

In all actuality, if we didn’t procrastinate so much, NaNoWriMo probably wouldn’t even need to exist, as we’d be pumping out books rather easily. But no. We procrastinate, and thus NaNoWriMo was born–a way for us to make up for all the other 335 wasted days of the year.

Yet NaNoWriMo isn’t just about eating tons of candy and writing a book. No, NaNoWriMo is so, so much more.

It is about winning. It is about crushing all other responsibilities into the dirt and ending up with a poorly drafted novel at the end of 30 terrible, mind-numbing days. But let’s be honest for a second here. Winning is, well…hard. No one has the time, strength, and mental stability to write 50,000 words in just 30 days and make it semi-coherent. It’s impossible. And quite honestly, I have no idea how to win at NaNoWriMo. And since they all say to write what you know, today I shall bestow upon you–

(Because that is much easier…)

Step One: Absolutely NO Prepping (prepping is for winners)

Now, for the pantsers out there (aka people who write by the seat of their pants [I know, I find that term relatively disturbing, as well…]), this is a pretty easy rule to follow. However, even the most pantsy of pantsers do a tiny bit of world-building right? I mean, they might have a character outline, a little bit of story to go off of, or just something to tell them what they want to write.

Well, forget about all of that and just don’t think about your story at all. Trust me. You don’t need it. In fact, why not just forget about NaNoWriMo completely until you’re already a week into November?

Step Two: Extreme Procrastination

Why bother writing those pesky 1,667 words a day when you can watch 1,667 episodes of that magical TV show you just discovered instead? And while you’re at it, don’t forget to check your facebook, twitter, pinterest, e-mail, facebook again, murder a man, chat with your friends for five billion hours……….

(#NaProMo)

NaProMo
1. National Procrastination Month
2. A month full of binge-watching TV shows and dissolving into the social media world until you are nothing more than a pixelized potato

 Step Three: Flexible Writing Schedules

Let’s do some simple math, shall we?

There are 24 hours in one day. In order to write 1667 words in that amount of time, a strict schedule is necessary. Put aside a specific time to write. Shut off the Wi-Fi until you are done. Lock yourself up in your room and–

Wait a minute, what am I talking about? You don’t need a writing schedule at all! Go ahead, binge watch Netflix for five hours and put off writing until you’re eyes are burning and it’s twelve minutes till midnight. You’ll figure out how to magically vomit the words out onto the page later.

I mean, seriously: 24 hours minus 9 hours of school divided by a million episodes of Netflix times thirty-five candy bars and a gallon of hot chocolate = NaNoWriMo Winner.

Simple.

 Step Four: Eat ALL The Candy

NaNoWriMo starts on the 1st of November (duh). But guess what the day before is?

That’s right! Halloween! And Halloween = candy. Lots and lots and lots of candy.

And what better way to celebrate the start of a crazy, hectic month than by eating every single piece of chocolate you can find? And don’t forget to ransack the dollar stores for all the clearance Halloween candy! (Because it’s obviously stale after Halloween night, duh.)

Trust me. Candy is the fuel of the writer’s imagination, and in order to keep your imagination fire burning, you need to frequently and constantly add fuel to the flames with more and more chocolate, until you are completely covered in a Crunch and Hershey blanket of silvery wrappings.

Don’t worry. That bloated feeling just means the magic is working.

Step Five: Pretend You Can’t Write Because You Have Writer’s Block

Every single writer has a single trick up their sleeve.

Writer’s block.

Don’t feel like writing today? “Oops! Writer’s block!”

You’d rather read that book than write? “Oh, darn. There’s that pesky writer’s block again!”

Honestly, writer’s block is the answer to all the lazy writer’s problems. Who cares that it’s actually  just a psychological problem stemming from the fear of people reading what you write? That doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that you can’t possibly write today because you’ve got writer’s block. It’s not your fault. Your muse just isn’t talking today.

Or tomorrow.

Or all month.

Step Six: Give Up Halfway Into the Month

Because why even try when you’re just going to lose anyway? I mean, it’s not like this is something you want to do so that you have a sense of accomplishment. It’s not like writing is the most amazing thrill ride ever, full of ups and downs and twists and turns and a bunch of other crazy emotions that make it the roller coaster of a lifetime. And it’s not like you’re doing this to prove to not only yourself, but to all the non-believers that writing a book in a month is possible, right?

It’s not like your doing this to get a bounding, leaping, kicking start to your dream of writing a book, or becoming a writer, or just getting that amazing idea out of your head and onto the page, right?

So giving up is a perfectly liable option.

Right?

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Well, that’s about it, Cyberspace! What’d ya think? Are you participating in NaNoWriMo this year??? What’s your story gonna be about? Is it full of magic and trolls? (I feel like my story needs some trolls…) Have you ever won NaNoWriMo? What are your best NaNo tips for newbies? Leave a comment below and tell me all the stuff!

And don’t forget to stay tuned later this week for the Totally Should’ve Book Tag! (I’m seriously considering doing Totally Shouldn’t’ve, just because I can… [Or maybe I can’t… {Who knows.}])

 

 

 

 

 

 

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