Last Minute NaNoWriMo As A Writing Exercise For People With Little Time

I’m really a great procrastinator! So on the morning of November 1st, I found myself doing blog scheduling and wondering if I can attempt NaNoWriMo too. Honestly, I didn’t know if I was going to do NaNoWriMo until this moment! I’ve decided to do NaNoWriMo as a writing exercise.

In case you don’t know, I’m pathologically indecisive and averse to commitment. So deciding last minute helps!

If you’re reading this, you probably know that NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Over the month of November, participants will attempt to write a 50,000 words manuscript for a novel. Unfortunately, I can’t do 50k! But I heard that you can tailor NaNoWriMo to your needs, so that’s what I did.

Without further ado, I’ll share very quickly what my plan is!

If you’ve decided to jump into NaNoWriMo at the last minute too, and found yourself at a total loss, I hope this very brief blog post helps you.

My aim for participating in NaNoWriMo this year is to make myself dive into fiction writing and hopefully turn it into a habit.

So, I’m not in this to produce a novel, but to make NaNoWriMo a writing exercise. Much like how people do Blogtobers, but instead of a post a day, I’ll write a story over 30 days without posting what I wrote.

Since I still intend to keep the blog going, I’m going to set my target at 25,000 words! Sounds reasonable?

I have the skeleton of a story in mind, but whether I get a story at the end or not is secondary. If I do, it’s great! If not, I’ll keep going unless I know it’s not working.

To help myself to pull it off, I’m adhering to 5 rules:

• Write 850 words a day – I’ll end up with 25,500 words by the end of 30 days if everything goes well, but the 500 words will act as a small buffer!
• Don’t worry about the quality
• Strive to move the plot forward
• Keep the writing time under 3 hours – I’m a slow writer, this helps me to stick to the plan
• Don’t go back to edit previously written material unless to change an essential part of the story

If you’ve always wanted to dabble in fiction writing, I invite you to jump in with me! Sometimes the best way to make ourselves do something is to decide at the very last minute. The more I think, the more hesitant I become!

If you want to attempt this writing exercise and need ideas for a story, consider these methods:

• Transform a favorite song into a story
• Take a movie you like that didn’t turn out the way you want it to, and retell it completely
• Write about a compelling dream you had
• Write about your life if it went exactly the way you wanted, but add in some ups and downs of course
• Turn a story you’ve heard as a child and build it into your own

I have no idea how this will turn out and I’m low-grade freaking out. But I’m also a little excited so that’s a good sign!

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? Let me know!