The dawn of week two of NaNoWriMo can be a beast. The adrenaline has worn off and you might be feeling a little winded here — perhaps you’ve hit around 15,000 words and have no idea what happens next in your story. You’re thinking, Three more weeks of this? and banging your head against the keyboard in agony.
Hang. In. There.
Our friends at Unbound Worlds procured some inspiring advice from novelists. Some of our top picks:
“One of my favorite aphorisms on writing is: Just get the clay on the table. There’ll be plenty of time to read over the draft and fix everything that needs fixing WHEN THE FIRST DRAFT IS DONE. Some tips for doing that? Set goals for every writing session. Have less time? Lower the goal. But do set them and work hard to reach them. Make them public if you need to. Tell someone else, to make it a personal challenge. Or set up #1k1hr challenges (1,000 words in an hour) with other writers on Twitter or elsewhere.” -Bradley P. Beaulieu, author of the Song of the Shattered Sands series
“Writing exercise: Make a list of your ten favorite books and/or movies, then write down what you think the theme of each story is. You may find that your opinion differs from your friends, critics, or even the avowed intentions of the author or screenwriter, but that doesn’t really matter. The point of the exercise is to get your mind attuned to considering theme as the underpinning of your story.”
-Anthony Ryan, author of The Waking Fire
“Be ambitious, be disciplined — but never lose sight of your own idiosyncratic, personal joy in a story well told. Nurture that and share that. It’s the most precious tool in the box. We’re in this to sustain reader’s hearts, if we can. To have a shot at doing so we must sustain our own.”
-Robert V.S. Redick, author of The Red Wolf Conspiracy
Read more great NaNoWriMo advice here.
And the next best thing to having a coach right there in the room with you is to listen to one of these classic books on writing whenever you take breaks to make coffee, eat, and take walks (which you must remember to do):
YES moment: “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.”
YES moment: “In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it 'got boring,' the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.”
YES moment: “Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?”
YES moment: “We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand. We were here; we are human beings; this is how we lived. Let it be known, the earth passed before us. Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn't matter ... Recording the details of our lives is a stance against bombs with their mass ability to kill, against too much speed and efficiency. A writer must say yes to life, to all of life: the water glasses, the Kemp's half-and-half, the ketchup on the counter."
YES moment: "Creativity is sacred, and it is not sacred. What we make matters enormously, and it doesn’t matter at all. We toil alone, and we are accompanied by spirits. We are terrified, and we are brave. Art is a crushing chore and a wonderful privilege. Only when we are at our most playful can divinity finally get serious with us. Make space for all these paradoxes to be equally true inside your soul, and I promise — you can make anything. So please calm down now and get back to work, okay? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes.”
