NaNoWriMo 2023: 5 Anti-Perfectionist Writing Lessons Learned
The magic of fast drafting to outrun your inner editor
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Post Soundtrack: Kazukii & Direct - Hold You
While I wrote my novel this month, my head was bopping to happy, upbeat music like this. For writing in cold November, it got me into my story’s summertime setting and boosted my mood during all those writing sprints! I was also energized by my Cyberpunk/Neotrance playlist for more sci-fi scenes, and the chill, peaceful vibes of my Fall 2023 Faves for those happy summer scenes.
I really wasn’t planning on doing NaNoWriMo this year . . .
. . . but two days before November 1, the growing hype in online writing groups nudged me to take the leap.
I’d just had elective surgery, so I had no major plans for the month. My only real responsibility was to “get well soon.” Plus, I already had a half-completed outline for my next novel just sitting in my notes!
So I logged back in to my 10-year dormant National Novel Writing Month account and signed up for the challenge: Write 50,000 words of a novel in the 30 days of November.
Because how else was I going to spend that time? My husband and I are currently in the US for a short-term sabbatical, which means we’ve had a lot more time to rest! And while I was recovering from surgery in November, the only people who really noticed me staring at my laptop for hours every day were my husband and his brother. They were content to let me sit in another room typing away while they played Super Mario Bros., and I was content to let their laughter punctuate my novel’s scenes. 😁
So about that novel
So what story was filling my head in nearly every waking moment of November? Which characters were feeding me lines of dialogue, and what plot holes were driving me nuts?
For my NaNoWriMo project, I started writing Book 2 of my planned YA sci-fi trilogy. I gleefully yanked my main characters out of Book 1’s happy ending and tossed them into completely new places, problems, and plot twists.
Book 1 is the novel most of you, my friends and subscribers, have probably heard me talking about. And that’s the novel I spent 18 months drafting and another 8 months editing, which still needs substantial revising.
After taking that much time to write Book 1, it was uncharted territory for me to write half of Book 2 in only 30 days. 😬
But I wanted to challenge myself to do it, because accomplishing something like that would mean conquering my writing nemesis: perfectionism.
And guess what? I accomplished it.
I wrote 50,476 words, which is 50% of my target word count for the novel, in the month of November. In other words, I won!
So, to hold onto what I’ve learned from this fast, frenzied, anything-goes writing challenge, here are 5 post-victory writing lessons about coming face to face with perfectionism and writing anyway.
5 Anti-Perfectionist Writing Lessons Learned from NaNoWriMo
1. Writing doesn’t take as long as you think it will
My dad and I were talking about how a lot of people say they’d like to write a book at some point in their lifetime, but few people actually do. I think part of the reason is that we think it’s going to take soooo much time, and we wait until some imaginary future date when we’ll suddenly have our lives figured out so we can devote an abundance of free time to writing.
And I was doing the same thing with starting to write Book 2. I was holding it in my head as this big, daunting project, thinking it would take me as long as Book 1 to draft, and thinking I really had to get the outline right before I started drafting.
But I jumped in with a half-developed outline, and churning out the words didn’t take as long as I expected. My fingers were flying over the keyboard, and the scenes were taking shape before my eyes. It helped to remember that quantity mattered more than quality (at least for the NaNoWriMo challenge). So I just drafted those scenes, not bothering to make the words themselves all that pretty, and finished the month with almost 200 pages of a first draft. It’s messy and rough, but the skeleton is there, ready to be fleshed out and polished later.
2. Sprints work great for discovery
There were a few scenes in my outline where I wasn’t sure exactly what should happen. So instead of stopping to think about it, I took advantage of this wonderful concept of writing sprints.
A sprint is when you get together with other writers, whether in person, on Zoom, or on a Discord server, with everyone chomping at the bit to reach their daily word count quota, and compete to write as many words as you can in 15 or 20 minutes. I guess I’m a pretty slow writer compared to other WriMos, so I never topped those charts. But I definitely wrote faster during those sprints than I usually do, because it was a chance to throw off my perfectionist inner-editor inhibitions and just write.
Those sprints were great for getting through those fuzzy scenes, because they helped me explore possibilities and discover new ideas and directions. I think it’s a mindset trick. When you write as fast as you can without editing or deleting, it tricks your mind into thinking everything you write is amazing, which gives your imagination permission to run wild with innovative ideas that you normally keep buried.
(Shout-out to my regional group, NaNoBoston, for the super supportive online community! I only made it to one in-person write-in, but chatting with everyone on the Discord was great for encouragement and accountability.)
3. Fast drafting combats sunk-cost remorse
You know the sunk cost fallacy? We’re more reluctant to abandon something we’ve invested more time, effort, or money into, even when it’s clear that it’s no longer the best option.
I’ve been hitting this wall with my revisions of Book 1. Even though there are scenes I wrote two years ago that no longer contribute to the story, I’m so reluctant to delete them now—just because I invested so much time in writing and editing those scenes. But, as my husband constantly reminds me, “It’s a sunk cost.” The time’s already been spent, and there’s no getting it back. I just have to go forward with what’s best for the story now.
NaNoWriMo creates the perfect conditions for combatting those feelings of remorse: Just don’t spend a lot of time on it! When I’ve spent less time writing something, it feels a lot easier to cut it. I already have whole pages in strikethrough in this month’s draft, and since I only spent 30 minutes writing them, it doesn’t feel like so much of a sacrifice to edit them out.
So I’m going to try to take this fast-drafting technique forward, and keep using challenge-style writing to simply spend less time on writing my first drafts.
4. Get stuck? Write around the issue
I got really, really stuck at 3 different points this month. But with the clock ticking on that word count goal, I had to keep going. So I found a couple of ways to write around the issues.
One way was to literally avoid the issue and move on to the next scene. I got stuck on what one character would say in a dialogue. Skipping it and continuing to write was the only thing I could do to keep up my momentum. It’ll figure itself out later.
Another way was by journaling, or talking to myself through writing, about what felt wrong with a plot situation. One of my main characters was making a decision that didn’t feel fitting for his character. So I talked myself through the details of what was missing, and figured out what to add.
Then I got really stuck at 45k, which is a bad place to get stuck when you’ve only got 3 days left! So I wrote three or four full pages of brainstorming about the plot, and figured out that the scene I’d just written was happening too soon for the story’s structure. I just needed to add more scenes before it, which finally got me over that 50k finish line.
5. Trust your instincts and follow your joy
I wrote scenes this month that I’d never dreamed of. They weren’t in my outline or any plans for this novel. But they surprised me and showed up on the page, because I was listening to my instincts about where the story should go.
If NaNoWriMo 2023 has taught me anything, it’s that you have to trust your intuition when you’re getting the heart of the story on the page. You have to follow joy where it takes you. When the story doesn’t feel right, listen to your gut telling you how to bring it back into alignment.
This month has taught me to fiercely protect my first draft from self-editing. Eventually I’ll get to the point of analyzing and cutting pieces from it. But the first draft is a process of discovery, and it’s risky to introduce self-critique at this stage. Because a first draft is just a first draft. It doesn’t need to be perfect, but it needs to exist, and it needs to capture the soul of the story you’re trying to tell.
Now what?
I’ll be honest: 50k in 30 days burned me out. I’m only halfway through this novel, but I’m going to take a break from it. My plan is to take December off and start working on it again in January. The 1,667 words/day pace of NaNoWriMo is unsustainable for me, but I still want to challenge myself to keep adding words to this draft at a consistent, regular pace. Because that fast-drafting revelation, #3 above, is really a game-changer for me!
Writers, what are your first-draft tips and tricks? What helps you combat perfectionism? I’d love to hear your take in the comments!
Thanks for reading and thanks to everyone who cheered me on this month! 🥳