It’s that time of year again. Leaves drifting and wheeling, pumpkin spice pervading, jack-o-lantern smiles splitting suburban yards, and, wait for it, the motivational banners that proclaim this it, the year, the month: November. This time, you’re finally going to write that novel. Of course, November is also the month in which school starts really, really crushing the boot down; August, September, and October are merely a prelude. Before November, school is winding up; November is when the hit lands. If you’re a winter season athlete, good luck getting more than five spare minutes between practice, homework, and dinner. (I am a winter season athlete, if you couldn’t tell.) Us high schoolers have to square our obligations to the canon of Literature with the realities of the education system. Now, before you get the wrong idea, let me make this clear: I am not discouraging you from National Novel Writing Month, although I am asking what I feel is a legitimate question: why November? Well, because, I suppose, no other month of the year starts with “nov”, and writers do love their wordplay. (As evidenced by the title of this article.) Regardless, I digress: if you want to do NaNoWriMo, I applaud you. Far from discouraging you, I have a few tips. #1: Plan everything out beforehand. This sounds like a platitude, but it’s one of those tired old sayings that’s actually 100% true. If you want to do NaNoWriMo, you have to write like a machine, and you know how machines work- they have directions. (I am not actually too familiar with how machines work.) Writing without a plan is a rookie move, guys. For my first NaNoWriMo, I determined that I would write 2K words a day of, well, I wasn’t sure yet. I had a vague sense of the tale - sea maiden’s thwarted romance with warrior nereid in the bowels of a sunken palace - but no linear sequence of events. I quit after 15 days, having produced something, if not quite a novel. The moral of the story is that writers gotta plan. What I personally like to do is take a sheet of paper - nice graphing paper, substantial - and a black ink pen. I’ll start with a swirly title, dash down the names of characters, then scribble down an “idea net”- amorphous imaginings about what you would like the end product to include; themes, images, inspiration. Sort of like a written Pinterest board. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else. The next stage involves staring at the idea net very hard for several long minutes, until the first plot point emerges. From there, it’s bullet-points all the way down. #2: Prioritize. I hate to say this, but in general, school is more important. If you have homework due tomorrow and a great piece of dialogue burning a hole in your pocket, do your homework. Well, first write down the dialogue, obviously; Post-Its are a good choice. (Oh, if you could see my desk right now. So many Post-Its, all scrawled with my delirious middle-of-the-night handwriting. Does anyone else feel like an absolute genius when half-asleep?) Your novel won’t die if you leave it for a few days. Chances are, once you come back to it, you’ll be a bit rusty, but soon the ideas will start flowing again, your fingers will start jumping on the keys, and you’ll be back where you left off. Not so with the gradebook! I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you this. Sometimes that one throwaway assignment really does make a difference between the 89.9% and the 90%. (To those unfamiliar with the vagaries of the American high school system, I say: the two percentages are polar opposites, night and day, one cursed, one blessed. Between a 3.0 and a 4.0, there lies a world of uncertainty and torment.) Also, your performance at school influences your future. Far be it from me to doubt your future as the next Hemingway, but even Ernest didn’t publish his first novel until he was 27. You have, like, a decade. Whereas the threat of the SATs looms ever closer. #3: Do what it takes to get into the flow. I’m talking the tunes, I’m talking the Room of Solitude. It is, objectively, obnoxious to yell: “Not now, mom, I’m writing my novel,” but sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do. As some famous writer whose name I have forgotten once said: the worst enemy to great writing is interruptions. DO NOT LET IT HAPPEN! You have to think of it like training a dog. Dogs are pretty good at learning. So are humans. Sit down and have a talk with the Peoples of Import in your life. Let them know that you’re doing this. Sample Conversation: You: “Hey, Parent/Trusted Adult. Just wanted to let you know that I’m doing NaNoWriMo this month.” Parent/Trusted Adult: “The video game corporation?” You (exasperated but tolerant): “That’s Nintendo. NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. I’m going to try to write a novel this month. It’s a pretty big time commitment, so this month, I might have less time for other things.” Parent/Trusted Adult: “Thanks for telling me.” Pause. Parent/Trusted Adult: “But, like. Is this a TikTok thing?” END SCENE #4: Write first, edit later. And the editing can come after NaNoWriMo. I mean, let’s be honest, NaNo is kind of about the word counts, right? Just keep writing. Writer’s block DOES NOT EXIST. If you have nothing to write, start writing, and it will come. #5: Don’t let ideas escape. This is more of a general writing thing, but it’s good practice to keep something - a physical notepad, or the Notes app in your phone - as a catchall for any good words, plot portions, or snatches of dialogue that you come up with during the day. This should be an almost obsessive practice. I will literally stop myself in the middle of conversations to write good ideas down. As should you. Finally, if this sounds overwhelming, reconsider. If you can write a novel in the month of November, you can write a novel in the month of April, or May (yikes, AP month), or June, or July, or August, or September. Pick one of the 31-day months and start writing. It does not have to be November. Have you ever heard a famous writer say: “The one piece of writing advice I have for you is that the month of November is a month like no other, full of mystical powers for stimulating fantastic novels. If you don’t write it in November, you might as well not write it at all” ? No, you have not, and that’s because it’s balderdash. You can write a novel any month you want, and in fact, you can write your novel in months, plural. Take the time you need. Take years, if you have to. The important thing, the crucial aspect, is that you are actually writing. You are converting the vague fluffy clouds of thought in your head into actual streams of language. Think about it. That’s pretty extraordinary. Naomi GageNaomi Gage is a sophomore in high school in Los Angeles. In her spare time, she reads, writes, and cooks. You won’t find her on social media, but if you see her in the street, feel free to say hell
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