I gave it a go last year and made it almost through the entire month, first in the summer boot camp and then in November. The Thanksgiving holidays were the deal breaker for me. Preparations during the week and then travel--I couldn't catch up. Still, I have the alarm set on my phone to go off daily as a reminder to write, even if it's not for the challenge. I got everyone in my family excited about the mystery plot I had half-created. I say 'half' because it had no ending. I had dozens of ideas of plot twists and crazy characters doing nefarious things, but I hadn't given consideration before I started about how it would all be resolved. I know some writers say the characters take over and the book writes itself, but after a few mornings of writing, mine just kept doing outrageous stuff without moving the plot forward. I was embarrassed to confess that when my family asked 'how does it turn out?' I had to admit I didn't know. The other downside is then they each started suggesting plot twists, character motives and endings. This only confused me more.
My recommendation: just keep the plot a secret. You need to appear more mysterious to your family, anyway.
Use a good text writer. Eliminate the clutter and distractions! You may use it for more than crafting your great American novel. Here are some resources for distraction free writing.
Here's a great post with a link to the NaNoWriMo main page to get you inspired if you've decided to accept the challenge. There's still time, even though November 1st has passed. There are some great links for writing to use any time.
Start writing on November 1. Keep writing. Don’t stop writing until you hit 50,000 words, or December 1, whichever comes first.Where do you write? Not on the site! In your word processor, notebook, or even typewriter, you iconoclast, you.
Update your word count by clicking “Update Word Count” in the topmost menu. Watch your word-count graph climb your novel as if it were Everest.
How about it? Are you up for it?
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