Top TIPS for Wrimos – NaNoWriMo

During the NaNo Marathon (yesterday, 9th November) I watched  LOTS of live streaming from the Google Hang Out – mainly to placate my guilt from not writing much as I spent the afternoon and evening with friends we’d not seen for a while and to feel part of the nano community as I missed the regional meet/ write in/ live marathon.

For those of you who didn’t run or watch and for those of you who did, here are some inspirational tips now we have passed the 30% barrier!

TOP TIPS

on getting stuck….try

 

Chocolate

Taking a break

do something not novel related

Go back to it

Start at a different point

Some writers add a challenge word

Take a shower

Murder your inner editor

Chat or forums twitter – ask for help maybe someone out there has an idea

Look at cat pictures or something else on the internet every 15minutes or 100 words

Search random photos and add a scene about them

Dream sequences

Caffeine

Go to the library

People watch

Give yourself some inspiration for 10-15 minutes

Go for a walk

Take a timer 15-20 minutes

Go to the regional in person event – bunch of people trying to do the same thing

Word wars

Sprints

Have snacks handy

watch Google + hangouts

Go somewhere where all you can do is write

 

On hitting the wall;

keep writing and …

pray

sprint –  5 minutes as many words as you can

include certain things in the manuscript – wrimos pick key words/ objects etc

Ask ‘What would your character do if no-one was watching?’ & write!

 

Day 9 NaNoWriMo – Marathon – 3 hours to go!

3 hours left and I have finally made it home from the pub… I am watching the livestream from earlier and am put to shame by Jules and Simone who plan to write 7000 today. Made only slightly better by the fact that the presenter Grant Faulkner has only made 12000 – and here I am on 16000+

see what I’m seeing;

NaNoWriMo Writing Marathon Livestream at Noon with Grant Faulkner and Kiddos!      

NaNoWriMo Writing Marathon Livestream at Noon with Grant Faulkner and Kiddos!

They talk about rewards and punishment – so every 1000 words I will treat myself to treat myself to 2 pieces of candy and a 10 minute break – I only have 3 hours to go – but may take my marathon over midnight.

I will update later

UPDATE

Well that was fun! Yes you heard me, FUN! I did however fall asleep on the laptop again!

When I found out today was the NaNo Marathon I got excited and planned to write throughout the day, then we made plans to see our friends in the pub and I thought I would still have time to write when I got home, thinking it would be tea-time. We got back just after 8pm (about 3 hours later than I had envisaged) and as you have already read, I only had 3 hours of this epic event day left to write.

I should have started straight away but I spent the first hour catching up on my PAD poems writing about Cat Ornaments and Lovers (not in the same poem!)

I spent about an hour and a half writing (deducting time for dosing at the keys!)

Here’s how my mini marathon panned out.

 700 exactly

Total Words Written  17,073

Words Remaining  32,927

 300  I made my reward – which I didn’t have – hence falling asleep from the lack of sugar at this point!

Words Written Today

1,628 (all this work and I haven’t yet even reached the average day count of 1667 and some of those words were written last night!)

Total Words Written 17,373

 330

Words Written Today 1,958

Total Words Written 17,703

Words Remaining 32,297

So at this point I have made my word count for the day – and fallen asleep at the laptop twice.

I decide my nano marathon challenge is to make it over 18000 before midnight and to do my best to produce 3000 over the course of Sunday – that way this weekend will have seen about 5000 words.

I play more live stream nano marathon videos.

NaNo Analogy

A good analogy watch it!

You are going to make it through NaNo.

I hit a wall tonight – not with the writing but with the fact that I had spent the afternoon shopping and then in a bar with friends drinking until 8pm and I dosed off and woke up feeling a little worse for wear, in the back of my mind I am thinking I need to write more material for tomorrow’s poets for peace event. I wrote my PAD poetry before I started my Nano write tonight and have just 30 minutes at this point before midnight to write.

 Another 288

Words Written Today 2,246

Total Words Written

17,991 My inner cheerleader gets involved …. 9 more words come on!

　

 22 words

Words Written Today 2,268

Total Words Written 18,013

So I haven’t exactly achieved a MARATHON amount of words (I will choose to have my own personal marathon in bite size chunks when I have a free day… ) but I set the achievable goal of 18000 and managed that, so I can go to bed proud of myself for meeting my objective even if it was only a 2268 word write. I still need 601 words to make it to 2268 today as some of these were written after yesterday’s count.

I had a lovely day with friends AND got to write another chapter of my story.

The good news is I have a second wind and am going to write a bit more before bed. Of course it is now Sunday and so the words will be counted on the Day 10 post, but as I am out reading poetry again tomorrow over writing now will be a bonus.

I have also picked up some great tips from listening to the live streams. I will add those in another post before bed.

Day 9 – Nanowrimo – Writing Marathon… On Your Marks, Get Set, GO!

The Marathon is TODAY!

Every year during the month of NaNoWriMo the good people of the Office of Letters and Light (Nano headquarters) organise a marathon! They are great fun to take part in and are also a good fundraiser for the site itself as people donate or pledge money on this day in relation to how much they manage to write.

I don’t know of any hard core wrimos who sit through the whole 8 hours (and I have been asleep for most of them!) I am sure if I surfed the net I would find some of the 200,000 + participants preparing for a whole day at the typeface. Just an hour or two is acceptable though!

It is also a great day to hook up with your regional group and write through the marathon itself together as a collective of wrimos. I am a bit gutted because in a city not too far from here my regional group are doing just that today. I am unable to go as I have so much to do and the 2 hour travel is time I need to spend on doing things today.

I do hope to meet up at the regional headquarters and write with the others before the end of Nano – but next weekend I am in Oxford and the weekend after that is my Gran’s very special and BIG 90th Party celebrations. So I am not sure I will make it to the Coffee Lounge this year. However, I plan on Nano being part of my annual writing plan so maybe next year I can make the meets and some of their warm up pre-Nano meets too.

Here’s some information from the email NaNo sent to all WriMos about this year’s marathon;

No time for reading… Must write!

The short version: Join us on Saturday, November 9 for day-long noveling madness in person and online, and donate to help us reach our $50K goal. Keep NaNoWriMo running the course for years to come!

All the glory of a traditional marathon, none of that pesky training. Just you, your novel, and a deep and abiding love of helping others discover the joy of writing.

 

NaNoWriMo’s 2013 Writing Marathon + Donation Day

On Saturday, November 9, 2013, Wrimos around the world will gather virtually and in-person for an all-day NaNoWriMo Writing Marathon.

No word count will be left behind.

Join us!

Spend a day marathon noveling (Marathoveling? Novelthoning?) at in-person events hosted in your local region, and virtually on Twitter and YouTube.

(Check your regional forum to see if your Municipal Liaison already has something planned, and let us know if it’s not already on our local events page!)

Can’t make it out to an in-person event? We’ll be livestreaming from NaNo HQ throughout the day, and you can also join in virtually in the official Marathon forum and join the #NaNoThon on Twitter for updates, challenges, and giveaways.

Wherever you choose to write, your commitment will be the same: to spend as much of the day noveling as physically possible.

I’m on the starters block…. are you?