4 Things I Learned from Writing a Novel in a Month

Everyone has a different NaNoWriMo experience. We’ve asked some wonderful NaNoWriMo writers to share theirs. Today, Lynne Powell Assa, NaNoWriMo participant, shares the four key lessons she learned from her first time participating in NaNoWriMo:

It all started with a friend’s cajoling Facebook post:

What qualifications did I have? Fiction writing is not a skill I developed working 26 years as an engineer. Sure, outside of work my favorite past time was reading, but never did I write creatively. My last short story was written in grade school. So besides being a retired empty nester, I will never know what possessed me to respond, but mid-October I was in!

And here’s what this NaNoWriMo newbie learned about writing and myself.

Planning is helpful, and Pantsing works, too

A planner by nature, such short notice meant foregoing my desire for extensive plot outlines and character development. I sketched a rough plot triangle to organize key rising and falling actions, and scribbled random ideas in an old spiral notebook. 

Starting November 1st, I made sure to sit at the computer every day and type. Type whatever popped into my head next. Just like life, you don’t go into a situation or conversation knowing what’s about to occur or be said. Roll with it. I was continually surprised by what events and thoughts unfolded, sometimes forgetting that I was the source. Pantsing was fun, and the yin to my planning yang.

Something’s gotta give

Going in to NaNoWriMo, be prepared to let go of something. Almost simultaneously with NaNoWriMo, I had started a 90-day yoga challenge. I convinced myself that I had time to do both; it was just a matter of prioritizing. 

The first week, the bargain I had struck with myself was to exercise first, then write. By the second week, my word-count columns were creeping below that cursed diagonal line, so my daily plan switched to write first, then exercise. 

By mid-month, writing got pushed to later in the day, sometimes after midnight, and so yoga dropped into a virtual child’s pose until NaNoWriMo ended.

Everyone can tell a story, all experience matters

Though I was not in a creative career, my job did include a lot of writing: proposals, presentations, reports, and articles. In order to make our technical writing engaging to readers—most often a potential or active client—my boss (and my best mentor) would coach me to “tell a story” with the data and plans. That phrase always stuck with me and other skills I’d honed at my job—like organizing information and adhering to a schedule—contributed to my first NaNoWriMo win.

Let it go

Borrowing the words of a Disney heroine: let go of perfectionist tendencies. My idealized vision of a novelist was someone who wrote from beginning to end, preening over each paragraph and—voila!—printed out a masterpiece at the end of the first draft. I wish a long time ago someone told me that writers wrote a lot of crappy first drafts and then did extensive rewrites before getting to the final polished product. 

Thanks to all the forums and pep talks, NaNoWriMo taught me to not judge every word, every punctuation mark. Just get it out of your brain and on to the page.

Lynne Powell Assa is a first time NaNoWriMo writer living in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Currently a self-professed pampered ex-pat wife, she is also a Registered Civil Engineer and in her past life worked on the planning, design and construction of airports around the world.

Top photo by Flickr user Daniel Y. Go.