Monday, October 19, 2015

On timed writes, word counts, and NaNoWriMo by Joanna Roddy

Image Courtesy: National Novel Writing Month

You will never see me running a marathon. Because, twenty-six miles. I mean, really? How about three? That’s extreme enough for me and I know I’ll be able to do it again two days later. For that matter, I'd be happier to do a yoga class or go on a jolly good walk. I may have a bum hip, but marathoning doesn’t appeal to my personality either. I like to savor things. I like to enjoy the task at hand and be ready for the next round. I like a challenge, but not killing myself in the process. In other words, I'll push myself, but my end-game is sustainability.

So National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is just around the corner and it's always struck me as a marathon-like task--an extreme feat of authorial athletics. I have utilized many strategies to get my bum in the chair to write over the years, but having a 50,000 word novel drafted in thirty days as my carrot incentive just seems a little over-the-top to me.

But this year I have to admit, I’m intrigued. All the women in my critique group have decided to do it. I'm sitting at the beginning of two big ideas. And I'm craving more self-discipline and the sacred space of those early mornings at the page.

Ok, but word counts? I discovered earlier this year that they just don't work for me at the drafting stage. I need to respect the work I'm doing in terms of quality in order to trust it to lead me forward and that just takes longer for me. It's a first draft, so I'm not going to nit-pick, but I need to feel I'm doing my best given what I know. I find my daily word count interesting, but it can't be my target because I need to find the path, and sometimes it's really hard to see. I could just take off through the underbrush in what I think is the right direction, but I don't want to find myself at the bottom of a ravine with no way out. No. There's a road under the ivy and I need to find my way along it, step by step.

So I want to do NaNoWriMo, but the word count thing is a hang-up for me. The rules might be too rigid, as Chuck Wendig suggests in his frank and hilarious post 25 Things You Should Know About NaNoWriMo, (warning: coarse language and vulgarity, if that's not your thing). Wendig argues that you are the only one this really matters to, so make it your own. Hang the rules.

I was chatting about it with a writer friend for whom word count goals also don't work. Except for him they don't work at all, ever, where for me, I thrive (and I mean THRIVE) on them in the re-write stage. And together we came to this conclusion: time goals. A general benchmark seems to be two-three hours for the requisite 1666 words per day in the NaNoWriMo model. And I decided that's going to be MY version of NaNoWriMo. Time with the work. At least two hours a day.

Image courtesy: The Pomodoro Technique by Francesco Cirillo
One of my favorite timed writing approaches is the Pomodoro Technique. It's deucedly simple: set a timer, work for twenty-five minutes, take a five minute break, repeat. Often the first set is painful to get through, but by the second or third, I want to skip my breaks because I'm on a roll. It works!

So I guess I'm doing my own version of NaNoWriMo. JoNoWriMo, I'll call it. I hope my liberality with the rules doesn't offend the hardcore Wrimoes, but we all have to find our own stride in this writing life and it should be celebrated in whatever form it takes, right? If I end up in December with 50K+ words, great. If not (and I suspect I won't), I think I'll still have won, virtual trophy or no. 

Question for you: Is anyone else planning to do NaNoWriMo this year? Any advice from former Wrimoes? 

And I’d also love to hear more from you about the word count/ timed writing debate. What works best for you and why? 

Whatever your November brings, may we all work well and grow in our craft. Cheers to that!

18 comments:

  1. I'm doing it again this year but am doing much more planning in advance, as opposed to the pantsing approach I used the previous two years, which resulted in painful revisions! I like the word count thing, but to be honest, I worry less about quality in draft 1 and more about getting my stakes in the ground! Love that pomodoro method!

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    1. Thanks Wendy! That writer I mentioned above suggests using October for planning and December/January for editing (at least!), which seems like a good idea. You'll have to let us know how it goes for you!

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  2. I haven't done it before, but I'm drafting so my goal is to finish by the time NANO is over. 1666 words is just too much daily -- for me, at least, it burns me out. For the first 2/3 of this draft, I kept up close to that pace, but now I'm happy (happy! not assured) with half that.

    But the timed part makes sense. I like working sessions of about 45 minutes, and I can usually do about 500 words per session. The more sessions I can fit into a day, the more words.

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    1. I like your idea of 45 minutes/500 words sets. It's like its own kind of Pomodoro Technique. Happy drafting and good luck, Kell!

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  3. Joanna, Like you, the word count goal clashes with my style of writing. I need time to think, and sometimes I need days off to let something simmer before I'm ready to write it. When I first left teaching and started working full time, I tried "the calendar" method where I got a sticker each day I wrote a 1000 words. (Seemed ironic for a former teacher to give herself stickers, but okay.)

    For me, it was a demotivational endeavor. Every day I didn't write 1000 words, I was a failure. Knowing I had failed made it more likely to fail the next day. And the next. I almost stalled out and abandoned the project completely. Only when I threw out the calendar did I start writing again.

    I do like your method of timed writing, though. I might give that a try!

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    1. Thank you for reminding me that simmer days are sometimes necessary and totally allowed! I'm sorry the sticker thing created false pressure, but I'm glad you've found your own process. Do you use anything to motivate yourself to get/stay working?

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  4. I loved this witty post. (And thanks for the warning about Chuck Wendig. I wonder how long it takes him to come up with some of his naughty metaphors? c.f. the last sentence of #17!)

    My goal is A-Page-A-Day, just like those ubiquitous calendars. It is manageable, and I often go way over. I am a tortoise rather than a hare, but at the end of a year I theoretically have 365 pages. (When revising, I have a 5-pages-per-day philosophy.)

    I have never tried NaNoWriMo, and I probably never will. As Chuck Wendig says, November is a terrible month to give your all to the first draft of a novel!

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    1. On Wendig: I found that particular metaphor a bit mixed myself. Inventive, though! ;)

      A-Page-a-Day seems gentle and yet challenging. Slow and steady isn't an adage for nothing. Unfortunately an every day approach doesn't work as well for me. I'm cyclical and have both productive and fallow seasons, so I try to account for that. I think it's a product of living by academic calendars for most of my life. But I can be very self-disciplined with an eye to a specific goal. I need a carrot ahead or a whip behind me, I guess.

      As for November, I host a huge American Thanksgiving every year, but other than that, I don't see what makes November such a bad month! Most people just show up to Thanksgiving and it's easy to delay holiday activities to December 1. The weather is usually crap, so the idea of staying inside to work isn't so awful as it is in the summer. I'm all for it. :)

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  5. I am participating in NaNoWriMo for the first time with my STUDENTS this year!!! I teach 6th grade language arts and my students got so into a journal prompt a couple weeks ago that they asked if they could turn their ideas into stories. Several of them even asked if they could write novels as a project this year. I have always wanted to be a writer myself and have a novel in progress so I thought this might be a fun way to bring something I am passionate about into the classroom. This group of sixth graders is hard to motivate. I am going to milk their newfound enthusiasm for writing as long as I can. I just set up my virtual classroom on NaNoWriMo's Young Writers Program website! So excited to see what this endeavor brings!

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    1. Wonderful report! Best of luck to your sixth graders. If anything noteworthy comes from your endeavor, please let us know!

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  6. I've tried NaNo twice. I crashed and burned after a week the first time. The second I created something I called "Fake-o NaNo" -- 1500 words a day six days a week. I produced the worst piece of writing in my life (and that's saying something!), BUT it was a starting point for a book I needed to write anyway.

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  7. I've tried NaNo twice. I crashed and burned after a week the first time. The second I created something I called "Fake-o NaNo" -- 1500 words a day six days a week. I produced the worst piece of writing in my life (and that's saying something!), BUT it was a starting point for a book I needed to write anyway.

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    1. A cautionary tale, if ever there was one. ;)

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  8. Good advice! Goals that get you motivated are great. But they should be your goals, not some arbitrary outside thing. On my personal blog, I have a post on Getting Ready for NaNoWriMo and PiBoIdMo – Why you might, and how you can http://chriseboch.blogspot.com/2015/10/nanowrimo.html

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  9. Joanna, I love the Pomodoro Technique. The structure of it works for me. I can do anything for 25 minutes and then reward myself with a break. (better than someone standing there with a whip or beating myself up! ha ha).

    I've stayed away from NaNoWriMo (cause November?? bad month!) but with a novel that is simmering and not fully working, I am considering it to have that accountability. I think rules schmules - whatever part of NaNoWriMo gets you writing in whatever way is a positive thing. Maybe I'll do DoNoWriMo :) Good luck!

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    1. If you do it, Donna, let me know! We can commiserate and encourage each other! The feeling of community really helps, and I think that's what's made NaNo so popular.

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  10. The one year I decided to do NaNo I found out the first week that I was - surprise! - expecting a baby, so morning sickness kind of killed it for me - haha!

    This year, I have a deadline - I have to do a draft of my next book by Dec. 31, so I'm sort of doing NaNo over November and December. It works out to roughly about 1100 words a day. We'll see how it goes.

    I'm not big on word counts either, but 1,000 words - especially first draft words - seems doable. Good luck, everyone!

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    1. Good luck, Marissa! I'm trying to finish drafting by early February on mine, so I'm in a similar rhythm. We should meet up and write some time!

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Thanks for adding to the mayhem!