A Wee Bit of Encouragement for Nano Writers

And every writer, really

Mindset, motivation and inspiration for novelists—with a dash of instruction about writing craft added in. There’s no one approach to writing that works for everyone, but I can help you find what works for you. Subscribe (free or paid) to get the fuel you need for your writing career.

Okay, you’re probably not using this beast to get your words in. Photo by Imad Alassiry on Unsplash

(After you’ve read the motivational (one hopes) words, scroll down for an update on this newsletter’s publishing schedule and a POLL about November classes.

This year, I’m doing Nanowrimo-ish: drafting on the energy of the collective hard at work on their 50,000 words to write more but not fully participating. I’m using it to kick-start me back into a daily fiction writing routine, which is when I’m most satisfied with my life, and to remind me that writing is my priority. So far it is working wonderfully and I’m happy as can be. There’s just nothing like the feeling that I get after a good writing session. In my old blog, my tag line was fall in love with your writing, your life, and yourself. (Here’s a link to a page from those days, 2011, to be exact. I hope you’ll be able to see it, I used the Wayback Machine to fetch it.) I used that tagline because after a good writing session, I feel like I’m in love with everything in the world.

In truth, it’s sort of magical. When I put my writing first, everything else falls into place and gets done. Or maybe it’s that I don’t worry about it getting done? Whichever, the days seems to flow with ease and if there’s one thing I love, it is ease. I am incredibly discomfort averse.

But I digress. This post is about Nanowrimo and it is about you.

Maybe you’re doing Nanowrimo this November. Maybe you’re not.

Or maybe you’re following your own path and saying, a pox on Nanowrimo, but you still want to get your freaking novel finished!

Whatever your writing task is, this post is for you. Because we all can use some writing encouragement. Like, always.

So what follows are random thoughts, support, affirmation for your quest. Trigger warning: some of these are mushy and schmaltzy but I thought you might need some mush and schmaltz this month, given the state of things.

You Can Do It

The world needs your voice. Cliche but true. Consider: the world population is 7.888 billion. And in all those people, there never was another one like you. Never another human who could write like you do, tell stories like you do. What a damned shame if those stories go untold.

Fear is the mountain you need to demolish. But faith is the antidote. Faith in you, that one unique human out of all the billions of them in the world. Faith in yourself gets you to the page, throwing words at it, nailing that word count. And self-faith is a muscle. It gets stronger the more you use it. That’s why Nano is so good—you get to use it every day!

If you’ve been given a dream, you have the power inside yourself to make it happen.

Remember, you’re writing a first draft. This is not meant to be pretty. It is meant to get words on the page. As Jodi Picoult says, “You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”

And, speaking of editing, you’re going to need to do a lot of it come December. Please remember that winning Nanowrimo does not mean you have completed a readable manuscript.

You don’t have to write what you know. That’s why we’re writers, because we’re good at making shit up.

“Writing is easy, all you need to do is open a vein and bleed.” (Variations of this quote have been attributed to Hemingway, sportswriter Red Smith, and another sportswriter Paul Gallico.). True story, sometimes. But not always! Let your Nano project be fun and easy. A lot of it comes from telling yourself that it is so.

In goofing around looking at my old blog, I just found the best writing exercise! This will help you if you get stuck somewhere in your 50,000 words. Describe it to a alien. The idea here is that an alien new to this planet would need to have even the most basic and mundane of things explained to her. Apply this to your writing.

Writing is mostly about persistence and Nano is teaching you that. The writer who sticks with it wins.

And, finally, in the immortal words of Ray Bradbury, “You only fail if you stop writing.” So don’t. Keep going.

Are you doing Nano this year? Please tell us about it in the comments.

Schedule updates and POLL!

Okay, I’m heading into knee surgery in a couple of weeks and because I’m going to be laid up for awhile, I’m discontinuing my mid-week post for the rest of this year. We’ll get back to it in January, when I’ll be all energized and ready to go.

But please note, my Sunday Love Letter will still come out each week. It’s my favorite child (don’t tell the others, especially the grandchildren) and unless I’m totally zonked out on Oxycontin, which I doubt because I hate opioids, I’ll write it for you.

And I hope to do a course for you also, my lovelies, hence the below poll about which class you’d be interested in. Bear in mind, that with the afore-mentioned limitations, this class will need to be of short duration—one or two sessions at the most. As a reminder, courses are longer posts on a specific topic which are free for all subscribers for one week and then go into the paid category.