I don’t often get motivated enough to write in my spare time like I dream of doing in my head. In order to put an end to that, I’ve finally decided (after many years of saying “next year”) to dive into NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. This is also how I intend to honor a promise I made to myself in college as an English major: write a book before my 25th birthday.

So, how do I intend to do it? Well, I’ve been reading up on some strategies, and I’ve been crunching a few numbers.

Word Count Strategy

5,000 words a weekend for the first 4 weekends (20,000) + 2,000 words on week days (30,000) = 50,000 words (winning status), 3 days to spare, and the Thanksgiving holiday to enjoy! With a few extra days to fudge it a little, I think it’s doable!

Writing Stategy

I plan to compose a decent portion of the novel as chronologically as possible, but I also hope to participate in various sprints that NaNo sponsors (see how inspirational sprints have been for me) – and maybe a few I make up on my own. I also hope to pull out a few of my old writing books from the English major days and use a few prompts from there. And, of course, I’ll rely on some character sketches and world building exercises to keep my ideas flowing fresh. And I’ll be drinking more coffee than usual probably. (And maybe some stronger things. What’s that quote? “Write drunk, edit sober.”)

My NaNoWriMo

Follow my progress on my own little NaNoWriMo site. I’m so excited about this, and I can’t wait for the world to meet Phoebe Hawthorne in Clouds of Fiction. I’ll also be posting a few updates about how the writing process is going here on the blog.