Sunset Post-Op, Part 1

NaNo Lessons

Here's stuff I learned this NaNo to succeed at NaNo:

#1 - Don't go by the 1.6K daily estimate. You won't make it because it unrealistically assumes you'll never miss a day or drop behind. It's fine as a guideline for one way to make it to the finish line in time - but it's probably the most unprobable way to get there.

Instead, plan early on for what kind of schedule will work for you. I planned on a few minutes here and there at work, my lunch break, and the occasional hour after work. So I knew, for instance, that the lunch hour was a required block of hardcore writing because it was about the only time I could rely on. I tried to get about 2k out of each lunch hour.

#2 - Dive right in. Just go full steam into your story with little care for what might lie ahead with your characters or premise. I'm not sure what No Plot! No Problem! ... the un/official book of NaNo ... says on this matter (haven't read)... but for me it is more important to have word fodder to play with later when you get stuck.

#3 - When you aren't writing, try to imagine what you might be writing about. If you're stuck in traffic or brushing your teeth, picture mentally what's going on with your characters and what might they be doing. What might they be doing now? What were they doing a year ago?

#4 - When you get stuck, flashback. Go to one of those musings you wrote about and just start from there. Doesn't matter if the flashback is relevant to your plot or what the characters were just saying. Consider this research. You'd be surprise the kind of details that come out when you flush out moments which seemed irrelevant at the time. Suddenly your character might be carrying a teddy bear because it got one in the flashback and THAT teddy bear might end up saving the world.

Happened to an uncle of mine.

#5 - When you get stuck (again), retcon. Retcon means retroactive continuity. And it's a fancy way of saying that you don't respect the past. Did that character have two parents before but you're suddenly curious what it would be like if they were an orphan? Write em as an orphan. Rewrite an old section if they were an orphan.

Once again, this might jar stuff loose for moving ahead with the original plot or it might send stuff in a new direction. NaNo isn't about making a finished product - and if you have a couple of branches which later get chopped if you decide to edit the story - there's nothing wrong with that.

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