NaNoWriMo is on the Horizon! (Tips for Creative Writing)

Hello there everyone!

Wait, what’s that? Over there? Aha, it is the wild NaNoWriMo, (National Novel Writing Month, which takes place in November) and it’s approaching fast!

So, you have two options. You can either flee in the face of the beast, or you can turn around, pen in hand, and charge it heroically. If you choose option one, then good luck to you. But what if you choose the latter option? What if you charge head-on into the fray, unprepared? Well, if you want to charge into novel writing unprepared, that’s fine. It could work. But without inspiration and motivation, there’s the possibility that you could fall flat, deflated, 10 days into the month.

So, how do you beat that? How do you stop yourself from falling flat? There are many answers to that question; different things work for different people and writing styles. In this post, I’ll be listing some tips and tricks that have helped me in my creative writing leading up to NaNoWriMo. Who knows, they might help you too!

Tip #1: Put Together a Writing Playlist that Matches the Story’s Mood

It is almost universally known that chucking on music when you’re trying to push yourself through a hard task always helps. It’s the same with writing; cool tunes keeps a cool head. A good tip for choosing music to listen to when writing is to ask yourself what the intended mood for your book is. For example, if I wanted to write a book that was mysterious and explorative, I would put on something like Far Horizons from the video-game Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. If I wanted to write something about rebellion against a tyrannical empire, I would listen to something like Green Day. It all depends on the intended mood of your story, and your personal taste in music.

Tip #2: Don’t Be Afraid to Have Bad Things Happen to Good Guys

It’s hard to kill off, maim, or destroy the emotional well-being of your main character/s. But sometimes, it can lead to whole new possibilities for your story, lines that you might not have been able to think up without that event happening.

Tip #3: Research, Research, Research!

If you have a general idea of what you want your story to be but you don’t know where to go after that, go ahead and take a few Google searches. Sometimes real life events can be good inspiration for your story.

Tip #4: Don’t Drown Yourself in Words

I know how it feels to get so into writing that you just don’t want to stop. But, as positive as that sounds, it’s easy to get bogged down with your project once you spend 4 straight hours on your story. It’s a good idea to limit your writing to a certain amount of time or words. That way, you’ll get some decent amounts of writing done without running dry on motivation.

Tip #5: Acquire Second Opinions

It’s always a good idea to share your story – or an excerpt at least – with one of your friends and to ask their opinion on it. Sometimes, they can show you things that you may not have noticed about your own story, and possibly even shed some light on new paths for your storyline. It is also useful to show your friend a story to test for reactions.

Tip #6: Have Fun and Express Yourself!

As cheesy as this sounds, the best part about writing is that writing grants a person the ability to express themselves wholly without boundaries. And it’s also quite fun. Don’t push yourself too hard to do it, don’t miss out on the rest of life by constantly grinding to push up that word count. If you do that, not only would your writing time become less fun, but it’ll also show up in your project. So, have fun! That is probably the most important tip I can give.

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Woohoo, you made it through another post! Congratulations! I would shake your hand, but that would be quite tricky, since I’m planted in my sort-of comfy desk chair. And you being planted in your desk chair, probably miles and miles away from me… Oh well, I can still shake your had metaphorically I guess.

So, I guess this could be my long-awaited universal post… but not really, since not everyone is interested in writiing. But oh well. If you want to correct me on something, or suggest another tip, go ahead and do so in hte comments below. I’ll just be here listening to Revolution Radio… which has lived up to the hype, by the way.

Anyway, I’ll see you all in the next post!

From your constantly crabby pal,
Thomas “The Mad Writer” McKenna