NaNoWriMo — the fifth
This is my fifth year of doing NaNo (for those unfamiliar with the term, it’s a month of crazy scribbling. Every participant tries to get 50,000 words in only 30 days. Of course, it’s easy to write the same word 50K times but that’s not the goal. There isn’t much to win except a few freebies from sponsors, but the feeling of accomplishment is great), and I chose to do two projects at once. Am I crazy or what?
To answer my own question, I’m not. In the last two years I found that I had big problems writing more than 1,000 words in my WiP. With a daily goal of 1,667 words, I struggled and struggled… you get the picture. This year, I tried something different. I’ve got a couple of German novels I want to e-publish next year, so I thought, why not do a double release in German AND English? For that, I’ll obviously have to translate the novels. So I decided to write 1K on my WiP and 1.5K in the translation every single day.
Interesting enough, I am breezing through my novels. I have fun writing a story with an African background and a matrimonial society, and I rediscover the fun I had when I wrote my Arabian-Night-Fairy-Tale spin-off. For my (future) readers, it means I get more done in the same amount of time.
Isn’t it funny that we always discover new strategies when we need them?
This is my first year trying NaNo and I’m already dismally behind. I’m still going to try though. Plenty of days. Good luck with your writing and translations. It sounds like things are going swimmingly 🙂
Don’t worry about being behind. Even if you are, at the end of the month you’ve got more words than at the beginning. That’s the whole secret of NaNo. Also, DON’T EDIT. If you tell your inner editor to shut up, your Muse will come out to play while you write. Stories might take weird twists now and then but it’s much more fun and you find surprising gems in that wonderful first draft.
You can revise everything — except an empty page (said someone on a NaNo-podcast a few years back)