NaNoWriMo 2021
How I’m preparing for this year’s challenge
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It’s that time of year again, for those of us who participate in the annual writing event that is NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every November, many intrepid writers all over the world set aside their other activities and focus on trying to write 50,000 words in 30 days. This means you need to write a minimum of 1,667 words each day to complete the challenge.
I know it sounds daunting, but I’ve found it’s not impossible. I’ve successfully completed that goal five out of my past six attempts. The only reason I didn’t meet the goal in one attempt was because I had major surgery in the middle of November. I hit 27,000 words before having surgery, so I was well on my way toward meeting the goal again.
Preparation
My past NaNoWriMo projects were all planned to be novels. This year I’m going to try something a little different. While I plan to publish this year’s story as a novel, it will start out life as a serialized story on Kindle Vella. That means I need to structure the story in a way that entices readers enough to pay to read the next chapter, rather than taking a plunge to buy the entire book.
I’ve recruited a beta reader who will help me review each chapter as I complete them. So, while I usually advise to not look back and edit as you’re writing during NaNoWriMo, I am throwing that advice for myself out this year.
The process I’m planning to follow is to write each chapter, give it one or two edits, and hand it to my beta reader before moving on to the next chapter. After the beta has finished reading and giving me feedback, I will complete a final edit before posting and scheduling each chapter on Kindle Vella.
To give myself some breathing room, I will not post until December. The plan is to post one chapter each day throughout the month. If all goes well, then I will write, edit, schedule the last chapter at the end of November. If things fall apart somewhere, then I may…
