Distance Writing: Tackling Large Projects

[Jubeebee]

For a lot of people, NaNoWriMo is the first time they've attempted to write fiction longer than a few thousand words. It's an exciting and challenging experience, and you should tackle it as such. Everyone has their own methods of writing, but from my own experience and from discussions with other authors, there are a few common things that can help you make whatever goal you've set for yourself.


Sleep.

Seriously. Everyone has a story about knocking out a killer short story or a feature article on two hours of sleep. But that kind of thing is not sustainable. Writing fiction is one of the more challenging things you can do partly because your only obligation is to yourself. You have to want to write, and you have to be alert enough to write. And there are a hundred other easier and more appealing things to do when you're running seven days on twenty total hours of sleep. Learn to manage your time. Make yourself a schedule that allows at least six hours of sleep on weekdays and eight hours on weekends.


Read.

One of my friends claims this is more important than sleep; but she's batshit insane. It is critically important, though. Trying to write without reading is like trying to paint with your eyes closed. Read books, not Maxim, not forums, not newsfeeds, books. Not only will you pick up a few turns-of-phrase and techniques for plot execution, but you'll get in the right mindset to write. You just aren't going to be as geared up to write if you've spent all day playing Halo as you would be if you spent the day reading. Try to get through no less than one standard-length novel per week while you're drafting. Your writing and motivation to write will improve.


Take breaks. Never procrastinate.

They aren't the same thing. No socially functional person can spend 6-8 hours at work/school, and then come home to read and write exclusively until bed for a solid month. The biggest challenge you're going to face is your own motivation. And when you haven't seen the sun for three solid weeks, you're going to have a hard time motivating yourself. Plan at least one hour each day when you do whatever the hell you want with your friends, online, etc.

Also include three or four days per month in your schedule where you don't do any writing at all. Life happens. Even if it doesn't, you will have bad days when you need to take a step back and recharge for the evening. Plan for this, because if you spend the whole time feeling guilty that you aren't writing, it won't do you any good. Plan for it, enjoy it when you need it, and be ready to get started again tomorrow.


Set useful goals.

To make NaNoWriMo's mark, you need to write about 1700 words per day, or about 7 standard pages, for thirty consecutive days. Realistically, some days you'll get more, some days you'll get less. That's fine; you aren't a robot. Again, everyone writes differently, but I believe setting strict daily goals is asking for disaster. If you get more than your goal, you'll start to think you can slack a little tomorrow. Less, and you'll start questioning if you really have what it takes.

Look at it another way: You need 50,000 total words for the month. That might not sound like much, so you kick out four pages per day for the first week. You haven't lit a fire under your ass yet. But now at the end of the month you'll need 2500 words per day, or ten full pages every day for a week. Once you slack off a little, it's very hard to catch up.

So stay focused while giving yourself some wiggle room; set weekly goals of 12,000 words instead of daily goals of 1700, or the equivalent for whatever your personal monthly goal is.


Jump Around.

Jump around! Jump up, jump up, and get-- look, some scenes are harder to write than others. If you hit a wall, it'll probably be when you're trying to write a difficult scene on a day when you're less than enthusiastic about writing. It's a fast fall from spending three hours to get three hundred words to getting discouraged and giving up completely.

Rather than banging your head against the wall on a difficult scene on a difficult day, skip ahead a chapter or two and write something easier. A lot of times you'll be fine writing an action scene, for example, but describing scenery will be an exercise in frustration, or vice versa. When you're on deadline, you don't have time to be frustrated. If you're stuck, skip ahead to something that's fun to write, and you'll have a better chance at making your word count.


PYAIC

Put Your Ass In Chair. It doesn't matter how good your vision is, you have to get the words on the page for it to mean anything. If you wait until you get a stroke of inspiration before you start writing, you're going to have a pathetically low word count at the end of the month. There's nothing mystical about writing; it just takes a lot of thought and a lot of time. You've already decided to commit both, so park your ass in the chair and get to it. Even if you are completely apathetic about writing one day, you'd be surprised what you can come up with if you open up your story and spend three or four hours in front of it. A sentence every five minutes turns into serious word count after four hours.



Above all, enjoy writing! Remember, writing novels isn't so much the Hollywood-style, 'sitting by a window in the sunset, brow furrowed, typing rapidly to an inspiring musical score,' as it is 'pacing the room at one in the morning while drinking lukewarm coffee and talking to yourself.' Which is much more fun anyway.

[RedMeansDead]

Good points all. I'll add a few personal thoughts to the points.

Do you remember the last time you had to go on with little sleep? Do you really remember? Because when you're tired the only thing you want to do is sleep or be lazy. If you're tired at the end of every day of work/school then you are unlikely to even sit down to write. If you have a job that makes you tired then, as a writer, you have my sympathy.

You don't have to read GOOD books to benefit. There have been bad books that sent me on week long writing binges just because I told myself, "This guy got paid for this garbage, and I can do better without editing. Yeah. Heck yeah, I'm gonna write something now." When you read a book that's boring or unbelievable or annoying you can pause, find out why you feel that way, and vow never to do the same yourself.

Also, I consider watching anime the same as reading if it has a good story; don't watch Dragonball Z, go get Death Note or something like that.

When you take a break do something enjoyable but not demanding. Don't say "I'll take a break to study that book on binary logic!" Do something light, both physically and mentally. If taking a jog or doing some light exercise won't turn you into a slug then that can be good too.

On setting useful goals, think of it this way. If you miss a weekly goal badly on a month-long project, you have failed the project. You're not going to catch up. Yes of course it's possible to catch up, but I'm talking about mentality; if you allow yourself to slack because it's POSSIBLE to catch up then you're exposing yourself to probability. In other words, you're making it POSSIBLE to fail to meet your goals as well. Do you want to gamble on the success of your goals? No? Then hold yourself to a higher standard. Treat each stage of your goals as vital.

I personally never have writer's block. Why? Partly because I think about the end of a story from the beginning, partly because I have a strong grip on the story. If you know what the story is about then you know the ending, and if you know the ending then you can "write it backwards". Let's say Tolkein had writer's block at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring. Well he could have told himself "The Ring goes into the Crack of Doom. Frodo and company carry it there. They have to sneak in. Hmm, that's going to be hard... one or two people might get lucky and go unnoticed, but ten? Yeah, ok, so they seperate. Frodo goes on his way... I can plan that around the geography. The others need to be useful though. Hmm, ok. They are going to do what they can to hold off the armies of Sauron. So we can send some to..." Working it backwards can show you a good way to connect both ends in the middle.

You may have heard the quote "I only write when I'm inspired. Luckily for me I get inspired every morning at 9 o'clock sharp." If you want to write as a job, treat it like a job. If you want to create a great story then know that nothing great was ever done without effort. Sit down, start writing, and let everything else sort itself out.

A work that you've already started isn't all about inspiration. Some of it is grunt work, and you're the one that has to do it. A new story needs an idea but if you've got any desire to write you have some ideas bouncing around in your head at all times. I recommend keeping an idea journal, but if you keep your writer's eyes open you can always find something worthy of a story.