No Plot? No Problem!: How to Schedule Time for Writing

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September is officially the month for NaNo Prep! To celebrate, we’re excerpting what some might call the NaNoWriMo Bible: No Plot? No Problem! by founder Chris Baty:

Writing 50,000 words of fiction really doesn’t take that much time. Slow writers find they can write about 800 words of novel per hour; a speedy writer (and good typist) can easily do twice that. Which means that the whole novel, from start to finish, will take and average writer about 55 hours to write.

If you had the luxury of writing eight hours a day, seven days a week, you could begin on a Monday morning and be wrapping up your epilogue in time for brunch on Sunday. 

The truth is, though, that few of us have the luxury of writing eight hours a day, seven days a week. In fact, between school, jobs, and the host of other daily events that fill our lives, carving 55 hours of quiet time, however small that number looks on paper, ends up being quite a challenge.

The chief tactic in formulating a winning battle plan for your noveling schedule is to try a variety of approaches early on, discover what works best for you, and use it relentlessly thereafter.

My personal technique is to write for two hours per night, three or four weeknights per week. I follow that up on weekends with three, two-hour sessions on either Saturday or Sunday.

Why do I do this? Habit. And because it seems to work. It also gives me one or two weeknights and one entire weekend day to relax and hang out with friends. This makes it exponentially less likely that I’ll kill myself or those around me, and I still tend to arrive at the 50,000-word point a couple of days before the month ends.

Some NaNoWriMo participants do all of their writing in the morning before work, taking advantage of the relative quiet and the pleasant caffeine rush of the predawn hours. Still others make a point of nabbing half the day’s word-count quota on their lunch break and typing out the rest on their train ride home.

The best way to approach your scheduling is with a light heart and an open mind. Because inevitably over the course of the month, you’ll encounter a variety of emergencies at work and home that will curtail your chapters and muffle your muse. Friends will pick your noveling month to have relationship meltdowns. Your three favorite bands will come to town on the one night you’d set aside to finally get caught up on your word count. And your computer, which has worked flawlessly for the past five years, will explode in an apocalyptic series of error screens and electronic moans.

When this happens, just go with it. Sometimes taking a night off to go to that concert is the best thing you can do for your novel. And other times, you’ll need to ask your friends to nail two-by-fours across your study door to make sure you have no way of fleeing your writing responsibilities. Having a ready supply of concert tickets and three-inch nails on hand, depending on your progress and mood, is the surest path to scheduling success.

Excerpted by Michael Adamson, with permission from Chronicle Books.

Photo by Flickr user *Nom & Malc.

Sep. 30 2013
#nanowrimo #writing #amwriting #nano prep #no plot no problem #by nano staff #chris baty
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  1. bookaddictmomma76 reblogged this from nanowrimo
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  3. astaraeldarkrahblack reblogged this from nanowrimo and added:
    For people actually planning on doing nano, I usually get a maximum of 10 hours off a night and spend most of it...
  4. pisceswriter reblogged this from nanowrimo
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  7. rhodrymavelyne reblogged this from nanowrimo and added:
    Thanks for the advice!
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