Last Minute NanoWrimo Prep

Hey all, I hope you are all having a good day and if you are participating in NaNoWriMo then here are some quick and easy steps you can do to ensure you will have a better start to your NaNoWriMo experience 😀

If you want to see me last year’s Last Minute Nanowrimo Prep, check it out as I am sure you will find a tip or two help you relax and feel prepared.

This year I am looking at things in a different way and I hope this will help you too 🙂

Last minute organization

If you haven’t done you outline like I’ve suggested in my Nanowrimo prep, you can use this last day to do a fast outline and have a quick know of what you gonna write about. Research only the key things you’ll need in order to keep on writing. you can always go back and do more research.

Put everything you need to do this month in your calendar/planner/bullet journal, that way you will have a better understanding when you can write.

Organize your space where are mostly going to write and if it’s your bed, try to make it nice and tidy every day so that you will have an amazing feeling sitting there and write.

Don’t start at midnight

There are a lot of Nanowrimo addicts that will start as soon as the clock hits 12, don’t! Go to sleep and when you wake up you are fresh and ready to start your writing.

Twitter

Twitter is your friend here (I know… it sounds weird), during Nanowrimo, you will find a lot of people on twitter doing words sprints and this is your time to follow a few of these sprints and a few nice people to connect with. As I wrote in my 4 Nanowrimo Tips last year, using the sprints will help you write faster and more words.

Google Drive

As Twitter, google drive is your best friend, lol. If you put your work on google drive you are automatically synced to everywhere and so you can write from everywhere, even from your phone.

The “Nanowrimo” app

There is a Nanowrimo companion you can find in the app store. You can see in the widgets your daily word count and your overall word count, this keeps you motivated and always thinking about your novel 😀

Be zen about it, hehe

Try journaling while before the madness starts to clear your mind of all the things that are bothering you throughout your day, I will highly recommend to do it even while you are doing Nanowrimo (it helps a lot).

Meditate to calm your inner self. I know how it sounds, lol, but calming yourself down will keep you focused on what you want and even let you figure things out when you’re in a bit of a rut, so keep doing even a 2 minutes meditation every night before sleep, will help you a lot during all this craziness 😀

Stock up

find some yummy healthy and not so healthy, hehe food to stock up when the time will come and lots of coffee/tea, that way you will always have some good crunchy food to each while fighting to write a scene or just in a mini-blackout.

Take a deep breath and embrace the madness and have fun, after all that’s why we are doing it the passion for writing ❤

Are you participating in Nanowrimo this year?

 

As always, thank you so much for reading and don’t forget to add me as a NaNo buddy ❤

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NaNoWriMo Prep: Using October to start writing again

Hey everyone, I hope you are all doing okay ❤

NaNoWriMo is less than a month away and October is the month to start writing again or just give yourself a boost of motivation to continue your on-going project. I am (still) in my editing phase so I will continue on with my own writing project in hopes to finally put a serious dent in my edits.

If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, then let me explain it to you… Nanowrimo is National Novel Writing Month that comes every year on November. In this nano month, you will try to write 50K in one month 😀 If you’re gasping of shock right now and thinking that it’s way too hard, then let me tell you that it is hard and it is madness, but that’s the entire fun of this. The point is to write and not think of what your novel will look like (that’s editing for).

Last year and a few years back I wrote a few NaNoWriMo Prep Posts that might spark your creativity and prepare you for what is coming, especially if you are new to Nanowrimo and not so familiar with what is Nanowrimo 😉

Here is my checklist, that helps me stay on track with my writing through Nanowrimo and preparing for it

Know what you gonna write about

Use this month to know what you’re going to write about. Try imagining your world, your characters, the theme of the entire plot. At first, it’s okay to write just a name, a place or a sentence of the plot. The more you write whatever comes to your mind the more good ideas will flow out and spark your Imagination and let it run wild.

Outline

I said this a lot but it’s true, outlining your novel truly helps, especially after the midpoint of your novel. So… Outline your nano novel as much as you can. My outline is about 40 pages and in many times more than 60 pages long (lol, wow… I need help). So do as much outlining as you can this month until you know all the characters, places, plots, and even some subplots 😉

Research

Don’t be lazy and do the work. Research about places, or people.
Listen to some conversation near you, hehe (I know it sounds weird and intrusive but it helps a lot) then, write down some key notes about what stood out in your eyes.
If your book is more on the sci/fi or Fantasy research about that subject, and try to create as many details as you can because when Nanowrimo arrive you will not have any time to do all this and you will have a much easier time writing down almost 2K a day, every day.

Connect

Go now to nano site and connect with other writers. you can find groups in your local area or just add writing buddies to help you be more motivated throughout the month, and do some sprints with them.

Take a break

In the week before nano or even just a couple of days before, take a break and enjoy your freedom, it will be your last chance for some free time for 30 days, hehe 😀

Embrace the madness

Don’t think of how it will turn out, no one has to see it. Enjoy the community and the madness of writing sprints with other writers and race towards your goal of writing 50,000 words a month. Ready to have some fun? 

This what I do every year, and it helps me get on track when I feel stuck or just have fun and write with other writers out there, so I hope it will help you too.

After all, as writers we mostly tend to do our craft alone and once in a year it’s so much fun to just embrace the madness of Nano and enjoy the wonderful community ❤ Btw, I’ve made this for NaNoWriMo last year, to put on my phone and on my Instagram and other social media, feel free to download it and use it 😀

View this post on Instagram

Made this for my lock-screen on my phone 😍 I wrote 800 on the first writing session and now I am at 967 words. So my total is 1767 🌸❤ Now onto some cooking and cleaning, lol 😃 Will continue writing later on today. . . . #nanowrimo #writetsofig #writerslife #nano #wordcount #writerscommunity #amwriting #NaNoWriMo2017 #authors #writersofinstagram #nationalnovelwritingmonth #nanowrimo2017 #writing

A post shared by 𝐆𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭 𝐁𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢 (@galitballi) on Nov 1, 2017 at 1:39am PDT

Link to download this cute nano picture here: Nanowrimo Pic 😀 Have fun downloading it and, I hope you’ll enjoy using it.

As always, thank you so much for reading ❤

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My NaNoWriMo Prep 2017

Happy Sunday to you all, I hope you are all resting and recharging your energies for the week to come 🙂

For those of you who don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, it’s a National Novel Writing Month (which takes place every year in November), where a bunch of people all around the world tries to write a novel of 50K words in 30 days. Nano is only 10 more days away (according to my sidebar counter hehe) and with the huge holiday we had here, and my mom’s doctor appointments, this month will fly by even faster.

This will be my 9th or 10th year of doing NaNo and even though I had to quit last year due to my mom’s health issues, I do hope that this year I will be able to finish.

I did make some great tips and NaNo prep a while back, and you can find them here and here. But this year I really wanted to share with you what I am doing these last days and how I prepare myself for NaNo (even with a busy schedule).

So here are the main things I do to prepare myself for NaNo

Writing an outline

If you don’t have any idea what to write, just brainstorm ideas and pick one that you liked the most 🙂

For me, I know what I am writing… So I am doing a full detailed outline, as detailed as possible. I guess that this outline will be around 30-40 pages, lol. I have already started today, so I have 10 days to finish my outline and prepare everything else I might need.

Cleaning and organizing my space

My desk tends to get messy, a lot and very fast, lol. So I am going to clean my entire space, which is our spare room where I have my desk, our washer and dryer, our closets, printer and a few more bits here and there. So, I need to reorganize it and clean it. Making sure I have an inviting space to write in.

Writing a few pages

In a few days, I will start writing just a few pages, this way I will have a good place to start from and I won’t get overwhelmed. It really helps me see my project better and what I want to write, so when NaNo starts I am not stuck and can immediately continue writing. It’s just helping me not fall into the writer’s block trap 😀

Picking up a nice notebook, pens, and even an app

Usually, before NaNo starts, I pick a good notebook and my favorite pens and I take them with me everywhere in my bag. However, due to a busy schedule with my mom, I learned to use my phone for writing – a lot.

I love to clear out some space on my phone’s screen that only has my writing app and a timer (or the widgets) and I choose that screen as my home screen. This helps me to see my writing all the time on my phone and keeps me motivated to write and not get stuck.

Embrace the madness!

I starting to accumulate lots Coffee, candy, tea, water and healthy (and unhealthy) snacks 😀

I loved sharing with you how I prepare for NaNo and I hope it helped in any way 🙂 If you enter NaNo, how do you prepare for that? Share with us what are you going to do, in order to prepare yourself for NaNoWriMo 🙂

Thank you so much for reading and don’t forget to add me as a NaNo buddy ❤

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