Five Zinger Discount

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By Brian Fontenot

It's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and your chance to join tens of thousands of others in trying to write a 50,000+ word novel in a month. If you are taking the challenge, here are the top five things you should avoid if want to reach your goal.

1. Talking about writing
Talking about the novel you want to write isn't going to get the novel written. Just like how friending your favorite political candidate on Facebook won't get them elected. You did know that, right?

2. Over-planning
So you have an outline, scene cards, character bios and interviews, and a wealth of other neatly prepared source material. But you don't have a novel. What you really have is the setting for a tabletop RPG. You might as well make some miniatures, invite some friends over, and see where they take the story.

3. Rehashing an old story
It's not National Novel Re-Writing Month. Write something new. It's about the climb, not the summit, even if the summit is awful, lacks coherency, is filled with laughable dialog, and happens to be a Twilight/Supernatural crossover fanfic.

4. Getting stuck
You're not really stuck. You're just too lazy to work the problem and will probably end up surfing the Web the rest of the night looking for "inspiration" or playing AIM checkers.

5. Procrastinating
Not doing today what you can make up tomorrow might be how you coast through your classes, but it won't help you actually accomplish anything in the real world, like arbitrarily writing a novel in a month.

The challenge began Nov. 1, but there is still time to participate and win if you hurry. Sign up for free at www.NaNoWriMo.org.

Originally Published: Issue 822 - November 4, 2009

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