Tips for Preparing for NaNoWriMo!

#NaNoWriMo begins in exactly 15 days.

Are you ready?

Neither am I, but unfortunately I don't think I'll be participating this year. I have 100 more pages of my book to rewrite and revise. BUT I participated last year and even though I didn't finish all 50k words, I still thought it was really encouraging! 

Today I'm here to give you some pre-NaNo organizational advice. 

1. Outline. Everyone will tell you this, but it really helps. Having a general idea of where you want your book to go saves you from staring at a screen midway through your NaNo-ing and going . . . um, now what? If you're anything like me, you'll have an outline and completely change scenes and situations around. That's fine too. As long as you have some sort of guideline, you'll be more than set. Also? Start outlining now!

2. Don't get caught up with your word count. Okay yes, I know NaNo is the time to really keep track of your words, but November is also a really busy time of year. Thanksgiving, preparing for Christmas, seeing family and friends, etc. Personally, I don't think you need to sacrifice seeing the people you love to get some words on a page. You'll always have more time to double that count on another free day of yours. And if you don't? That's okay too! At least you're trying :) 

3. Stop being a perfectionist. The beauty of NaNoWriMo is that is allows you to word vomit all up in your document so that you can add in all those details later on. NaNo isn't the time to go back and tweak every paragraph you write. Concentrate on that during your revisions. 

4. Don't. Query. Your. NaNo. Everyone will tell you this. Despite what you think, it's not a good idea. Who wants to read word vomit? No one. Clean that up first, then send it to your CPs. (BTW, Alex just wrote a fantastic CP post. It's magical). If you don't do this, everyone in publishing will hate you. (Okay, maybe they won't hate you, but they will want to slap you with wet noodles)

Good luck to all you NaNo-ers! 

Farrah Penn enjoys staying up way too late and making up for it in large quantities of coffee. On top of her love for reading books with memorable characters, she also enjoys internet memes, yoga, and her adorably bratty dog. When she’s not rushing to complete marketing projects at work, she’s writing and daydreaming about traveling the world. Farrah writes YA and is represented by Suzie Townsend of New Leaf Literary.

You can also find her on Twitter @: https://www.twitter.com/farrahwrites
Drop her an email @: farrahnicolepenn@gmail.com
And visit her blog at: http://www.farrahpenn.com