No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days (5 page)

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SCHEDULING YOUR WRITING TIME

Which brings us to the important question: How to allocate the soon-to-be-liberated hours the Time Finder just uncovered? Pacing is obviously important, but what is a good pace? Should you write every day? Every other day? On weekdays only? Does the onset of a bad mood mean you get to skip a planned writing session? What about an exploding pancreas?

Unfortunately, there are no hard-and-fast answers to any of these questions (save the case of exploding body parts, which warrants a one-day writing exemption). Even professional novelists have wildly conflicting theories about the ideal times and durations for writing sessions. The chief tactic in formulating a winning battle plan for your noveling schedule is to try a variety of approaches early on, discover what works best for you, and use it relentlessly thereafter. My personal technique is to write for two hours per night, three or four weeknights per week. I follow that up on weekends with three two-hour sessions on either Saturday or Sunday. Why do I do this? Habit. And because it seems to work. It also gives me one or two weeknights and one entire weekend day to relax and hang out with friends. This makes it exponentially less likely that I’ll kill myself or those around me, and I still tend to arrive at the 50,000-word point a couple of days before the month ends.

Some NaNoWriMo participants do all of their writing in the morning before work, taking advantage of the relative quiet and the pleasant caffeine rush of the predawn hours. Still others make a point of nabbing half of the day’s word-count quota on their lunch break and typing out the rest on their train ride home.

We’ll get into the pros and cons of various noveling locations in chapter three. For now, the best way to approach your scheduling is with a light heart and an open mind. Because inevitably over the course of the month, you’ll encounter a variety of emergencies at work and home that will curtail your chapters and muffle your muse. Friends will pick your noveling month to have relationship meltdowns. Your three favorite bands will come to town on the one night you’d set aside to finally get caught up on your word count. And your computer, which has worked flawlessly for the past five years, will explode in an apocalyptic series of error screens and electronic moans.

When this happens, just go with it. Sometimes taking a night off to go to that concert is the best thing you can do for your novel. And other times, you’ll need to ask your friends to nail two-by-fours across your study door to make sure you have no way of fleeing your writing responsibilities. Having a ready supply of concert tickets and three-inch nails on hand, depending on your progress and mood, is the surest path to scheduling success.

HOPE FOR THE BEST, PLAN FOR THE WORST

Even with all the vagaries of the novel-writing process, there are a few problems you can anticipate. Week One, for instance, is much easier than Week Two. It’s a good idea to set aside a little extra time in the first seven days to rack up as many words as possible before the going gets tough. Other predictable problems vary depending on personality. I, for one am an inveterate procrastinator. While I regale my friends every year with the same wild-eyed promises about getting way ahead of my word-count quota early and staying far out in front of the writing pack the whole month, in truth I’m always struggling a little toward the end to finish the book on time. Because of my steadfast, rock-solid procrastinating ways, I’ve learned to keep the entire final week and weekend of the month free of social obligations, no matter how enticing the parties or dinners or concerts sound. I make sure any trips I need to take happen in the beginning or middle of the month. I also do my best to reduce my workload (or, ahem, fall deathly ill) on the final Thursday and Friday of the event. Usually, I don’t need all the time I set aside for myself, but the few times when eye strain or wrist problems have slowed my typing toward the end of the month, having those extra hours available has been priceless.

Yes, there is something a little defeatist about accepting one’s slacking ways rather than trying to fix them. That’s a worry, though, for another month. The healthiest, most productive approach to writing is to acknowledge your weak spots early on, and build a writing plan that plays to your strengths and works around your liabilities.

Once you have your plan in place, you’re ready to move on to the next important step: finding a support network for encouragement and companionship on your upcoming voyage.

RALLYING THE TROOPS

For Trena Taylor, the decision to write a novel in a month didn’t net her quite the outpourings of support she’d hoped.

“The announcement was greeted by a steady stream of blinking,” thirty-four-year-old Londoner and two-time NaNoWriMo winner says. “Total incomprehension. Most people just couldn’t get ‘round the idea that someone might actually want to write a novel, never mind the timeframe. Why spend a month writing a book when it only takes five minutes to buy one from the shops, was the general attitude.”

Ah, friends and family. The compassionate souls who will be your cheerleaders and voices of reason; the ones who will pick you pick you up off the floor and set you gently back at the computer keyboard. And also the ones who are most likely to poke merciless fun at this ambitious, artistic plan you’ve dragged home.

Whether those closest to you love or hate the idea of you spending a month slaving over a novel, it’s essential that they know about your plans. In the same way you wouldn’t think about going on a long trip without checking in with your loved ones, you should make sure you brief everyone about your literary agenda.

Why? Because for all their potential helpfulness, your intimates can also make your thirty days in novel-land very, very difficult. They can take your newfound shut-in tendencies personally, erode your willpower through succulent diversions, or demand extra amounts of your time just when you need it most for the book.

Mostly, though, you should talk to them because they are probably harboring secret noveling urges as well. And nothing diminishes the pain of extraordinary labors like having a friendly someone toiling there alongside you.

THE JOYS OF WRITING PARTNERS

Novel writing is the perfect social activity. Granted, it is a social activity where no one is allowed to talk. And one where much of the pre-and postevent socializing consists of tearful laments about the deplorable state of one’s writing and the meagerness of one’s talents. Maybe I have a strange idea of social activities, but this to me is heaven. And a productive heaven at that. Writing with a partner (or three or four) helps all parties tap into the pool of competitive energy that forms when several people are working toward the same goal. When noveling with someone else, you have a pacer, a motivator, and a sympathetic ear for sharing the triumphs and tragedies of your novel. It’s more productive and a lot more fun. From your immediate family to long-forgotten classmates, chances are good that someone you know will take you up on the offer. And if no one in your immediate area is up for the challenge, pitch the idea to friends and relatives in faraway towns. You may not be able to novel in coffeeshops together, but you can have nightly check-ins via phone or email.

FILLING THE HOME TEAM BLEACHERS

Just because someone declines the opportunity to come along on the writing journey doesn’t mean that he or she can’t be an essential part of the trip.

From cooking you the occasional dinner to checking in on your progress and mental stability, your support network of nonwriting friends will be invaluable in helping you survive the noveling slog. Because these are also the people most likely to be affected by your writing-inspired mood swings, your possible shortages of free time, and your substantially diminished regard for cleanliness (“I’ll shower tomorrow, honey, I promise!”), it’s a good idea to make sure they are on board. When making my pitch for support to my loved ones every year, I always touch on the following four talking points:

-TALKING POINT 1: It’s not so much that I’ll be totally absent for one month as it is that I’ll be exceptionally present for the other eleven.

Amateur writers who take years and years to write their rough drafts are sentencing themselves and those around them to a constant barrage of “novel guilt.” This is the hand-wringing, esteem-squishing sense of constant self-disappointment that accompanies any project that doesn’t get worked on as often it should. By writing your entire rough draft in a month, you are not so much taking yourself out of your loved ones’ lives for weeks as you are giving yourself to them for the years and years to come. By compressing all the procrastination and ensuing self-loathing into thirty manageable days, you’ll be more pleasant to be around the rest of the time. (Don’t mention the word “rewrite” until much, much later.)

-TALKING POINT 2: I’ll still have time for fun stuff while work on my novel. With all the pressure of cranking out a book-length work of fiction in such a desperately short amount of time, you will be in need of fun, reviving distractions at various points throughout the month. And you’ll have more time for socializing than you, or they, think. By removing the forgo-able items from your schedule, you’ll likely nave a few goofing-off hours per week that didn’t exist before. You’ll be busy, yes, but not that busy.

-TALKING POINT 3: Doing this is important to me.

Those closest to us are also the ones who have heard all of our earnestly proclaimed, unfulfilled New Year’s resolutions about gym-going, healthier eating, and other unrealistic pursuits. Your best friends are also the most likely to see this novel-in-a-month plan as another of your charmingly crackpot selfimprovement schemes. Don’t be offended if you encounter some good-natured ribbing; the idea of writing a novel in a month deserves to be laughed at. When the chuckles die down, though, do your best to make it clear that, however ridiculous the whole escapade may sound, you plan on seeing it through to completion. Also make it clear that, when you are a best-selling author, you will use a portion of your vast fortune to reward your supporters and destroy those who scoffed at you.

-TALKING POINT 4: I need your help.

Everyone loves helping an underdog triumph against insurmountable odds. Talk to your best friends about all the obligations and chores you’ll be juggling while you write, and have them brain-storm possible solutions and time-savers. You’ll likely find a plethora of volunteers ready to help you get the small things accomplished so you’ll have more time to go toe-to-toe with that literary Goliath.

-------------------RISKY BUSINESS: COMING CLEAN TO CO-WORKERS ABOUT YOUR NOVEL

Some month-long novelists have found some of their most vocal supporters among co-workers. But unless you work for an incredibly understanding company or have very close friends at work, I’d recommend not mentioning your project to fellow employees. Superman was Clark Kent to his coworkers, and you might want to be similarly discreet about your new superhero novel-writing powers around officemates. Not because they won’t be encouraging, but because word about your efforts will inevitably make it back to your boss, who will then know exactly who to come to when someone prints multiple copies of a two-hundred-page document on the office laser printer at the end of the month.

--------------------------------------DOING THE NUMBERS: WHERE YOU SHOULD BE ON EACH DAY OF THE WORD PARADE

We’ll do the worst-case scenario math, and assume you’re writing you’re novel in a thirty-day month.

-Day 1: 1,667 words

-Day 2: 3,334 words

-Day 3: 5,001 words

-Day 4: 6,668 words

-Day 5: 8,335 words

-Day 6: 10,002 words

-Day 7: 11,669 words

-Day 8: 13,336 words

-Day 9: 15,003 words

-Day 10: 16,670 words

-Day 11: 18,337 words

-Day 12: 20,004 words

-Day 13: 21,671 words

-Day 14: 23,338 words

-Day 15: 25,005 words

-Day 16: 26,672 words

-Day 17: 28,339 words

-Day 18: 30,006 words

-Day 19: 31,673 words

-Day 20: 33,340 words

-Day 21: 35,007 words

-Day 22: 36,674 words

-Day 23: 38,341 words

-Day 24: 40,008 words

-Day 25: 41,675 words

-Day 26: 43,342 words

-Day 27: 45,009 words

-Day 28: 46,676 words

-Day 29: 48,343 words

-Day 30: 50,000 words

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TURNING CLOSE FRIENDS INTO OBLIGATIONS

Gentle encouragement from your friends and family, however, is just the start. Warm smiles and youcan-do-it emails won’t help you keep your butt in the chair when you’re ready to give up in the middle of Week Two. After collecting a group of cheerleaders, the next step is to leverage all their goodwill into usable quantities of fear.

Yep. Terror is the amateur novelist’s best friend. Without some amount of it pushing you onward toward your goal, you’re going to lose momentum and quit. There are just too many other, more sensible things to do with your time than try to write a novel in a month, and all of these more interesting alternatives will become irresistible if you don’t have some fear binding you to your wordprocessing device. Happily, with a little work, your friends and family can terrify you in ways you’d never imagined.

-------------------HOW TO HOST RUTHLESSLY PRODUCTIVE GROUP-WRITING EVENTS

If you don’t have a laptop that allows you to take your writing out into public, bring the public home to you. Hosting a writing day (or, casting your net more widely, a “creative day”) in your home or apartment will ensure you stay on track, and will make the chore of writing more fun. If you do invite friends over, make it clear in your invitation that this will be a work session, and that attendees who don’t maintain a minimum level of productivity will be beaten. Include a clear start time and end time in your invitation, and encourage people to be punctual.