#campnano

Plan ahead of time. 

At heart I am a plotter and I do not even start writing a story without having a completed outline, a couple of character sketches and a good idea of my world (I mostly write fantasy). While I know that a lot of people are pantsers and write stories from scratch, personally I would not advise that, especially if you’re still in the beginning stages of your writing. The NaNoWriMo website has a lot of helpful resources under the NaNo prep section, and I highly suggest you at least use some of them to plot out your novel. Trust me, it really helps. Since NaNo is all about writing quickly without worrying about editing, you won’t be able to write quickly unless you know what’s going to happen in the story. Although the fun of writing is creating as you go, having a basic outline will help make sure you don’t get stuck in the middle.

Find some helpful writing buddies.

I cannot stress the importance of writing to friends. They motivate you when you’re down, hype you up when you’re excited, and help you work through all those plot holes you can’t seem to fix. Try to find writing buddies of your own age and frequency, so that you’re able to interact with them better. 

Create a good writing routine that is easy to keep up even on the bad days. 

Even if you don’t write for the same amount of time, if you write at the same time every day it’ll become a habit. Even on your bad days you’ll still show up to write at that time, thus keeping up the habit.

Focus only on writing.

Don’t stop to think about editing, even for a minute. If you get sucked into the editing hellhole, you’ll never be able to find your way out. NaNo is all about just getting that first draft out there, and so only focus on that. 

Recognize and celebrate the small achievements. 

Every chapter you finish, every word you write is a step closer to your goal. Keep recognizing your achievements, no matter how small, so that you always have something to look back at and smile at.

And that’s about it! Each writer works differently and I can’t say that these will work for you, but if you’re a young writer like me and you’re new to NaNo, you might want to try some of these out to help achieve your goals. But also remember that it’s completely okay not to achieve your goals. You’re doing this only for you and no matter whether you meet your goals or not, you’ve still added words to your project, and you’re still a valid writer. So keep writing, and don’t stop no matter what. 

Smrithi Senthilnathan is a 16 year old writer from India. From a very young age she's nurtured a passion for reading books and writing stories. Recently, she started to channel that passion into working on longer projects, like novels. Some of her stories have been published in online literary magazines. When she's not writing maniacally, you can find her playing the piano or reading with a steaming cup of hot chocolate in her hand. 

Instagram: @thereaderspoint101

Blog: https://theunwrittenstories101.wordpress.com

Monday, April 5th – I worked on Thursday, but then we had that Passover Special Triple Whammy of breaks, and now I’m back. I’ve officially hauled all the non-story content out of the KAY document, and now all that’s left is STORY. 280 pages of it. 76,460 words of it. 20.5 chapters of it. Phew.

45 / 450

Tuesday, April 6th – Everything in the world to do; no time to do it in. I have now officially cleaned out the original KAY References document, so that it contains all the miscellaneous stuff and the Outline document contains all the outlines/ideas.

65 / 450

Wednesday, April 7th – Couldn’t possibly tell you what I did today. I think I researched birthday gifts. Moved one scene around in the document.

90 / 450

Thursday, April 8th – Reading through this outline is embarrassing. Was I just a bad writer when I wrote it? What was my problem? Well, it’ll be good this time.

120 / 450

Sunday, April 11th – Spent most of my time on Book Two’s outline, figuring out orders and details. Book Two is currently much more sparse than Book One, so I decided to look through my links for TVTropes episode ideas. Found a few tropes I suppose I should add to the overall KAY page… Also looked around for literary engagement rings. Not for reasons any of you should be concerned about.

155 / 450

Monday, April 12th – Nearly finished with going through the tropes list. I’m hoping to avoid writing an entire outline and then thinking, “wait, what if I added THIS in?” In the case of Book Two in particular, I’m quite short on adventures for Atlas and (mumbling). Oh, and I’m five minutes ahead of my goal! At this rate I won’t get behind this weekend; just un-ahead.

185 / 450

Tuesday, April 13th – I have finished with the tropes list and am thinking of ways to torture Constantine. If I have too many ideas for Book One, I can just turn some of them into bonus episodes, right? And I am officially over a day ahead.

215 / 450

Wednesday, April 14th – Now it’s just a matter of organizing all the ideas into an outline shape. I’ve started with Book Two, since it seems a little more manageable.

245 / 450

Thursday, April 15th – The first full week! I just realized today that I’m past halfway on my goal; at this point I could take off not just Fri/Sat but also Sunday if I wanted to. But I won’t!

275 / 450

Sunday, April 18th – Took a break from outline organizing to edit the first chapter. For secret reasons…

310 / 450

Monday, April 19th – Back to outlining, but also to doing a little bit of writing. I’ll give the first chapter another look tomorrow.

340 / 450

Tuesday, April 20th – Our first late update! True to form, however, I did complete my edit of the first chapter and updated on time on the NaNo site.

370 / 450

Wednesday, April 21st – Session meh at first, sped up when I got into my groove. There is a lot of content in this document.

410 / 450

Thursday, April 22nd – Very tired this time around; a little burned out from a variety of things I’m working on. Glad for the weekend! Set to hit my goal on Sunday.

430 / 450

Sunday, April 25th – Another late update; I hit my goal! Still, not anywhere near being finished. It’s really hitting me how much I’ll have to include in the story.

455 / 450

Monday, April 26th – My biggest roadblock is not knowing what I wrote down. Did I already write all the details out for this Halloween episode somewhere else in the document, or should I describe the whole scene right now just in case? Also there are four of these.

475 / 450

Tuesday, April 27th – Feeling much better now that I’ve gotten into my organizational system! Ctrl+f is also helping.

500 / 450

Wednesday, April 28th – Did a little less writing, a little more relaxing, with the excuse that I had a Cirque du Soleil disc which was due any second at the library.

510 / 450

Thursday, April 29th – Smoother sailing. Like playing Tetris.

530 / 450

Friday, April 30th – Last day, and I’m feeling more optimistic than ever. I achieved quite a bit, and there’s more work to do next time I come back to KAY. I’ll compile all of these updates into the one post above (so you don’t have to see this ungodly chain again!) and make a final update post in the coming days. Thank you for following along.