Helpful Links
Happy November! Here are a few helpful links to start the month.
For NaNoWriMo participants: How To Start a New Book by author April Henry and Building Self-Care Habits: Refilling the Creative Well to Write Your Best Work by Jamie Raintree.
(If you are unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo or undecided about trying it, I have a post here, plus a nice photo of me and my mom.)
For introverts: People Who Prefer To Be Alone Have These 6 Special Personality Traits. (I'm not sure how much of this is based on science, but it's a feel-good read.)
For readers: the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators has compiled their annual free recommended reading list of books written by SCBWI members.
For complainers: The 21 Day No Complaint Experiment. (I would probably be on day one of this forever.)
For NaNoWriMo participants: How To Start a New Book by author April Henry and Building Self-Care Habits: Refilling the Creative Well to Write Your Best Work by Jamie Raintree.
(If you are unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo or undecided about trying it, I have a post here, plus a nice photo of me and my mom.)
For introverts: People Who Prefer To Be Alone Have These 6 Special Personality Traits. (I'm not sure how much of this is based on science, but it's a feel-good read.)
For readers: the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators has compiled their annual free recommended reading list of books written by SCBWI members.
For complainers: The 21 Day No Complaint Experiment. (I would probably be on day one of this forever.)
IWSG Blog Hop
Every month, the Insecure Writers Support Group poses an optional question that members can answer in their blog posts. Special thanks to Alex Cavanaugh for founding IWSG, and to this month’s awesome blog hop co-hosts: Tonja Drecker, Diane Burton, MJ Fifield, and Rebecca Douglass. (Be sure to stop by their blogs and say hello!)
This month’s question is:
This month’s question is:
Win or not, do you usually finish your NaNo project? Have any of them gone on to be published?
I participated in NaNoWriMo once and completed the 50,000 words. I think it can be a worthwhile experiment and the sense of community support during the month is helpful. I'm still untangling the mess I created (also known as Revision), so that novel is currently unpublished.
Even if you choose not to participate in NaNoWriMo, the concept offers some interesting productivity principles that can be applied to other projects (or other months):
Even if you choose not to participate in NaNoWriMo, the concept offers some interesting productivity principles that can be applied to other projects (or other months):
- Set a concrete goal.
- Publicly declare that goal. (Whether this works because of accountability or shame, I’m not sure. But it does change the dynamic from just promising yourself.)
- Find other people trying for the same goal, if you feel like that will help. (You are all suffering together!)
- Monitor your progress on a regular basis. (NaNoWriMo includes daily word count tallies.)
- Consider changing the way you approach a project. For example, I normally edit as I write, but NaNoWriMo encourages participants to keep going, without revising, until they reach the word count goal.
- Check the results at the end of the project. If you encountered obstacles, think about how you can avoid them in the future.
Best of luck to those who are participating!
Random questions of the month: Are you a complainer?
Is daylight savings time something you complain about?
Random questions of the month: Are you a complainer?
Is daylight savings time something you complain about?
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