Oct 13, 2021
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The following is a transcript of this episode. For a complete transcript, please visit the show’s website.
[00:00:00] In all of your time writing the works that you're doing, did you ever think to try to crank out 50,000 words in a single month then perhaps you are gearing up for the national novel writing month that happens every year in November, also known as NaNoWriMo. And we are talking about preparing for that today on Writing in the Tiny House.
[00:00:34] Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I give you the tips and tricks to writing that work of fiction that you have in your brain that you think you are too busy to write, but I'm here to show you that it's completely possible.
[00:01:14] And here I am in Northern Utah living in my tiny house. We had a hiatus and we went to Hawaii not too long ago. And I have said in a few episodes that we are going to be hitting NaNoWriMo pretty strongly this year. I missed out on NaNoWriMo last year. I missed November and NaNoWriMo is a great time of the year. It is where we celebrate making progress in that work of fiction that you're doing or whatever it is you're writing.
[00:01:46] Today in order to make sure that NaNoWriMo is successful, we have what is called Preptober where we go through, we organize our notes. We figure out our schedule and we do all of the things as a way to make sure that NaNoWriMo is going to be successful. That is what we are going to be covering today. But first I need to say a couple things about my current work in progress. Many of you know that I have been working on a novelette the, it is Tales from Vlaydor, Installment One: Brigitte. And it has gone to the editor and the editor has kicked back the edits.
[00:02:30] And so I am doing the final cleanup before laying it out, sending it back to my editor for a final proofread and then releasing it on Amazon. Some of my writing is going to be available for all of you to read and destroy. If you want to, it can be really nerve wracking, releasing something like this.
[00:02:54] But I just need to give a shout out to Krissy Barton, my resident editor for this project with Tales from Vlaydor. She runs a business called Little Syllables editing, and she is great. She is fast. She is in constant communication with the author of whatever she. Editing and she has incredible customer service. She does line edits and copy edits, and then the final proofread.
[00:03:28] So if you want prices, she is affordable. Go ahead and go to little syllables.com and I will have the website in the show notes of this episode. Krissy Barton is amazing. Please send her all of your business.
[00:03:44] Let's talk about Preptober. Let's talk about making NaNoWriMo count. So the whole goal of NaNoWriMo is to do a 50,000 word manuscript in one month. It is to make 50,000 words of progress in whatever work you are doing in the month of November. And I have interviewed people on this podcast or at least one person specifically AJ Mac who did that.
[00:04:10] And he cranked out his first novel because of NaNoWriMo. He had the idea already, but he didn't have the push to get it finished. And so he did his Preptober correctly so that he could do his NaNoWriMo most effectively. So NaNoWriMo is technically a competition, but it is a self paced competition.
[00:04:33] Meaning you are not actually racing against anybody unless you join a Facebook group that is racing against something. And it is all about just accomplishing things. And so if you manage to write 50,000 words and NaNoWriMo, nobody is going to question your work, but they give you a thing to print out, to display like a certificate, and it can be a super fun way to bring like-minded people together who enjoy the craft of writing and storytelling.
[00:05:03] So let's talk about what Preptober gets to be in order to understand what NaNoWriMo can be, which will be in a future episode. First of all, to write 50,000 words in a month means that you need to crank out about, let me hurry and figure this out. Let's see, 50,000 words divided by 30. That means you need to crank out an average of 1,667 words every day. Now I'm going to be upfront with you. I'm going to be very serious about NaNoWriMo, but I don't think that I am going to make a 50,000 word progress on anything just because I am on this release schedule with these short stories and novelettes for Tales from Vlaydor.
[00:05:53] Which means there are automatically going to be some days that need to be dedicated in my case, that needs to be dedicated toward revision and toward editing. And so that is already built into the month. I don't have a way to really change that. And it's important to me to stay on this schedule because I want to release at least two of these short stories by the end of the year. if you have not written 1,667 words in a day before, but you want to do NaNoWriMo, I highly recommend that you find some time in Preptober to try it. Set some time aside, have some notes ready, have an outline ready for whatever it is t hat you're going to be writing. I recommend doing it in 25 minute bursts, and then you recover for five minutes and then you do 25 minute bursts again. Those are called writing sprints. It's something that a lot of people do in order to make good progress and to stay on task and to not be overwhelmed by your writing. But you need to measure that baseline for how fast you write and how much of it at a time you can tolerate. So for me, I personally prefer setting aside at least one hour, if not, two hours to write.
[00:07:14] And I know that in two hours time, I can crank out 2,500 words. If I set myself to a clock and do these writing sprints, and I don't get caught up in editing too much. If you have never written things before, or if you have not written things in a long while, or if the things that you have written have not been on a computer and they have been long hand in a journal, or in some other medium like that, you may want to set some time aside to see what your rate is and how much of it you can tolerate.
[00:07:51] So once you have that figured out, you can then look at your month of November and see what your schedule is for the entire month of November. Just because if 1,667 words is all that you can handle, which is perfectly fine. I know plenty of published authors who write half of that every day or in the times that they choose to write and they do just fine with what they're doing.
[00:08:23] They usually don't do a big push for NaNoWriMo also, but if 1,667 words is the limit, then that means that you need to do it every single day. If you're hoping to reach 50,000 words in November. And so that means that you get to look at your schedule and you get to set that time aside.
[00:08:42] If you live alone and you are completely reclusive and you don't have any obligations outside of your bubble, then it should be easier to set time aside to do this. If you want to. However, if you are like me and you are juggling a family and you are juggling a full-time job and other things, I still have this podcast to do during November and realistically, I don't think that I'm going to be recording four episodes ahead of time.
[00:09:11] So that I don't have to record anything in November. I just don't foresee that happening. Then it means that you need to set aside a time to do that. And. You can do more than 1,667 words every day. Then you can figure out when you need to take your days off, or if there are other obligations that come up that need to be considered so that you can reach that 50,000 word mark.
[00:09:38] By the end of the month, I told you with my podcast and with writing these short stories and being on the release schedule that I'm on, I'm not going to be able to honor a 50,000 word. By the end of November. However, I think that I can get close to half of that and considering all of these other things that I'm doing during that month, I think that's pretty.
[00:10:02] Okay. So we'll see, I will fill you in as it goes and it's going to be an awesome thing, guys. I'm excited to do NaNoWriMo. Excited to have you guys I'll do it with me. So know your schedule, know your limits, sit down and plan out what you're going to be doing with your schedule and your limits. And then guys, November is a time to bust out words.
[00:10:29] If busting out words aggressively. At a very reckless, rough pace that is going to require hella revisions at the end of November is not your style. Then don't participate in NaNoWriMo. However, if you want to go all out and make a ton of progress in your novels. The thing is I find most of my magic in revising what I've written anyway.
[00:10:58] And so it's okay if my first drafts are really rough, I like to crank out larger volumes at a time. And so this totally works for me, but in order to be prepared for that, I know that I need to have at least something outlined. I'm not much of an outliner. I don't like to have an outline. Like the outline that I prepared for my novels was like three pages long.
[00:11:23] And this was back when the two novels that I'm writing were in one manuscript. And so this was going to be at that time, a 200,000 word document, and I had like a three page outline. I prefer to revise, revise, revise. It all just depends on what you prefer. And there is no right or wrong answer. I love revising, but I also know that unless I understand what I am about to sit down and write, I will struggle with the writing sprints.
[00:11:59] So it is really, really valuable to me. To at least have some notes to have at least a skeleton outline of what I'm going to be doing so that I don't encounter writer's block or I don't encounter writer's block as much. There is always a chance that in the middle of all of this frantic fever, Writing a pounding on your keyboard and staring at your word processor.
[00:12:28] There is always a chance that you're going to need to take a second to step back and outline a little more. I do it regularly with my books. My outlines tend to be pretty dynamic and. It is important to understand that the more you have outlined the less you are going to encounter the possibility of writer's block.
[00:12:49] And that means that you can push through every single day until you reach that 50,000 word count at the end of NaNoWriMo. So with that, I intend to finish the rough draft of at least one short story and have well. I intend to finish the first and second drafts of at least one short story and have the rough draft of a second short story finished.
[00:13:18] I'm also going to be staying up to date with this podcast. I'm not going to be skipping episodes in November, and if I choose to get my crap together, I might, pre-record a few things so that in November, I have more time to focus. Writing and less on talking about writing. So we'll see what I managed to actually do. I am envisioning and I am purposefully creating time in November to revisit the novels that I was writing earlier this winter, this previous winter and spring, just because it has been a minute. And I feel that I am ready to make some more progress with that. And I'm excited to revisit some of that and to add some parts that have been bubbling around in my brain and.
[00:14:07] I'm eager to make more progress with that. So it's going to be a first and second draft of one of these short stories, a rough draft of another, and some more headway in the novels that I have not finished. And like I said, I will touch base with you every single Wednesday. If you are a patron, it will be on Saturdays.
[00:14:31] Just to share with you the progress. This episode is going to be released to the public October 15th. And so that gives us two solid weeks to fit in a good prep Tober so that we can be prepared. And have all of our notes together so that we don't encounter writer's block during NaNoWriMo. And that means that even if we are furiously writing and composing and drafting and all the other words that mean writing in November, it means that what we write will be more focused and it will be more clean and it will have a better plot.
[00:15:12] It will have a better structure, without doing all of that work beforehand, you risk having a plot that doesn't make sense. You risk having some very fundamental problems. So do your prep. Tobar guys. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I love every single one of you, people who subscribe to this show, even if I don't entirely know who you are, if you wish to become a Patron and support this show. It is because of the generous donations of my patrons that this show is possible. Please go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse and sign up to become a patron today. Also follow me on my social media. My Instagram handle is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is @authordevind. Again, thank you so much for tuning in today and have fun writing.