Five Tips for NaNoWriMo: The Post-NaNo Reentry Process

Editorial director Tim Kim helps you navigate the post-November landscape:

November is over, and—while at times during the month, you couldn’t wait for it to be over—it’s a little sad that NaNoWriMo 2013 is over, isn’t it? Now: you probably spent much of November holed up in your writing corner, ignoring the growing pile of dishes, laundry, and/or loved ones at your door. Here now are my five tips for reentry into the world:

Bask in the glory of your accomplishment.
Put your life back into order while letting your novel breathe.
Reacquaint yourself with these strangers who say they know you. Recruit one as a beta reader.
Reclassify candy as a non-essential food group, and get fit for the hard work of editing.
Own your accomplishment, and gather your spoils.

NUMBER ONE: Bask in the glory of your accomplishment.

You did a hard thing this November. Where others say, “One day,” you said, “Today.” That’s tougher than it sounds. You refused to be intimidated by time, by hard work, by the voices around you that insinuate your story isn’t important.

Everyone writes for a different reason: for personal reflection, for an audience, for the sake of a character who just won’t leave you alone. The important thing? This month, you wrote. It’s easy to sneer, or tear down, or question whether the world really needs more points of view, or stories, or creativity. It’s hard to create.

…Please don’t laugh if we shed a tear as we high-five you. It’s just because you high-five really hard, we swear.

NUMBER TWO: Put your life back into order while letting your novel breathe.

Nobody blames you for letting a few inconsequential things slip while you were putting the writing pedal to the metal in November. Sure, someone cordoned off the kitchen sink with caution tape, but, hey, who hasn’t had that happen at least once?

Key tools for this sort of industrial-strength clean-up? A fire hose, a dumpster, and, like, ten cases of Febreze. Even better, you can let the fresh first draft of your novel breathe: come back in a month after your house is habitable again, and you’ll find you’re ready to look at it with fresh eyes.

NUMBER THREE: Reacquaint yourself with these strangers who say they are your partner/child/best friend/parent. Recruit a beta reader.

You know they look familiar. When you swear you know them from somewhere, they put on an exasperated face and say, “Yeah, from when we lived in the same house for a DECADE.”

Sure, they might be crazy, but you begin to remember, hazily, that you had a family once. Smile brightly, lie breezily, “Oh, of course! Duh,” and then tell them you wrote a novel. The weight of this accomplishment should immediately smooth over any bumps in the road, and you can then talk about your story until you remember the exact role in your life the person in front of you plays and whether or not they would make a suitable beta reader for your novel. (If not, check out our forums!)

NUMBER FOUR: Reclassify candy as a non-essential food group, and get fit for the hard work of editing.

Obviously, November comes with a retooled food pyramid. Candy, chocolate, and caffeine become part of the base of a writer’s diet: this is a simple fact of life (If you’re American, Thanksgiving also contributes to the no-cares-given diet of November). Besides, writing burns off calories, mostly because of all that frantic slamming of your head against your keyboard.

Editing, though, is an even longer game than first-draft writing. Get lean, get mean, go green with a salad or two, then come back in the new year for our “Now What?” Months. From January through February, we’ll be guiding folks through editing, revision, and publishing, and we’re not saying we’ll be drill coach-y, but we’ll be drill coach-y.

NUMBER FIVE: Own your accomplishment, and gather your spoils.

Every victor gets some loot: on December 5, we’ll load up your winner page with goodies from our sponsors, including a physical, paperback copy of your novel, publishing opportunities, and more.

Finished your novel before December 1, but didn’t get to validate your novel in time? We can help!

Thank you so much for writing with us this November. You are awesome, and no, we’re not backing away, of course we wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye, what, are we animals?

I mean, I can see why we might try, because it’s really hard to say goodbye to you, and we don’t want you to see us cry, the high five was embarrassing enough as it was, and whoa, how did I end up out the door; we’ll see you during Camp NaNoWriMo, maybe?