Are you too Late to NaNoWriMo2017?

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

Are you wearing a waistcoat, running around and muttering "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" like the White Rabbit in Lewis Carroll's book, “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?”

Have you always wanted to participate in National Novel Writing Month that happens every November? Do you think you’re too late? Rest assured you're not. You’ll be joining me at the writing party of the year. Here is the link to set up your free account. 

There are lots of reasons to participate. According to an article in Publishers Weekly, Jason M. Hough, who wrote a draft of his novel The Darwin Elevator (Del Rey, 2013) during his second NaNoWriMo, says the program forced him to let go of the idea of an ideal creative atmosphere. “In four years I wrote eight pages total. I wouldn’t sit down to write unless I felt like all the planets had aligned and the conditions were perfect. You learn that you have to just fight through that stuff and get the words on the page.” Later in the article it states, “After Hough finished his draft of The Darwin Elevator, he spent some years revising it. 'There’s probably not a single sentence that isn’t unchanged.'”

The important thing to remember is Hough framed his book as a part of this forced writing month. Obviously editing will be a task for another month, but the important thing will be that you have words on the page. 

Are you still concerned about being too late to start? Sign up so you are accountable to writing each day. If you start today, November 9th, you need to commit to writing 2,273 words per day to have over 50,000 words by the end of the month. I’m in this boat with you, paddling/ typing as fast as I can. 

Just start writing today. 

Get off social media for the rest of the month. The time you spend on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram is better spent in writing toward the 50,000 word goal. Tell everybody you're taking a social media break. 

You’ve got this. You can do it. Join me and make this the year you complete NaNoWriMo. 

Fall into Daily Writing

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

Most people turn over a new leaf with the ringing in of New Years Day and set new goals. However, when leaves begin to turn glorious colors and subsequently fall to the ground, I get geared up for a recommitment to daily writing. 

For me, it helps to set new daily writing goals before the busy holiday season begins. It also helps give me a kick start towards the National Novel Writing Month Challenge. What is the challenge?

Write at least 50,000 words in a month. Yes, it's doable. You will not go crazy, you just have to get the right mind set. Remember the first day of any college class? The professor gives out a syllabus listing various papers' due dates. Those dates always seem far away but quickly appear. The lessons I learned in my college years was to start planning for writing assignments in my career by daily writing. 

To successfully write 50,000 words in a month, you have to STOP the human nature of self editing. Silence that inner editor. That includes all temptations to edit. The purpose of NaNo Writing is to just get as many words on paper as possible. If you're a "seat of the pants" type writer, you will probably have an easier time in just free flow writing. However, if you're a "plotter-outliner" you can still be successful by doing a little bit of prep work before November 1st, start date of the challenge. Just jot out a short outline and then write.

Let me break it down for you. If you have a website and do a daily blog post of 500 words per post, you only need to write roughly 1200 more for a total of 1700 a day to easily meet your NaNoWriMo goal or over 50,000. Your goal isn’t to end the month with a completely polished novel, but to write each and every day. Successful authors always advise to become a writer you must write.

Are you curious of any best-sellers that started as a National Novel Writing Month projects? The following are just some of the success stories that came from the challenge; Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, Wool by Hugh Howey, The Darwin Elevator by Jason M. Hough, Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress by Marissa Meyer, Persistence of Memory by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, BreakupBabe by Rebecca Agiewich, Take the Reins by Jessica Burkhart, The Movie by Bosley Gravel, Livvie Owen Lived Here by Sarah Dooley,Losing Faith by Denise Jaden, The Compound by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen, The Hungry Season by T. Greenwood, Olivia Bean, Trivia Queen by Donna Gephart, and The God Patent by Ransom Stephens.

So what do you have to lose? Nothing but a best-seller, if you don't even try the challenge.

Join with me writers and fall into writing.