Preptober is coming to an end and NaNoWriMo is right around the corner, guys! Who’s excited? I’m excited!! Are you excited??
I know it’s so much hard work and NaNoWriMo is basically agreeing to go slowly insane for a month, but it’s also fun and an adventure and when you make progress it feels so good! And even when you fall behind it’s just great how supportive everyone is and it’s just a great community and such a great concept and I’m just AAAAAHHHHHH can you tell that I’m looking forward to it????????!!!!!!!!!
*Deep Breath*
Okay. I’m back. I’m calm.
I’m almost set with my prepping, still need to fill out some bits in my NaNo bullet journal, and I need to pick my damn rewards, and I now have a total of four days to finish this damn chapter I’ve been working on, but mainly I’m good to go. I’ve also decided not to beat myself into an emotionally bloody pulp if I don’t manage to finish this chapter before NaNoWriMo. So it’s all good.
In other news, Halloween season is also upon us, though I’ve been too excited about Preptober to really think about it. Okay, I’ve been to a couple of Halloween-related events, but those were really more about getting to dress up. I do like Halloween. The rest of the world pretends to be as disturbing on the outside as I am on the inside – it’s reassuring, really. There’s a Halloween party at this gay bar tonight that I’m definitely going to, though I haven’t decided on a costume yet.
Anyway. My point is, there’s a lot happening right now. It reminds me how hard it can be to find the time to focus and actually work, to get into the right head space to get. shit. done. What I’m a believer in is routine and rituals, and with NaNo coming up, I’m gonna need to get into a good routine quickly. So I thought I’d write my ideas here and see if I can’t managed to come up with a decent plan. If it also inspires you to sit down and plan your writing rituals for NaNo, so much the better.
I’m going to tell you the same thing I tell you every year around a NaNo event. I am a lazy human. A very lazy human. If it wasn’t for my deep and urgent need to tell stories, I would spend all my days just lazying around my apartment watching TV shows until I died of malnourishment. But girl’s gotta write, and so girl’s gotta stay alive by doing things like work so she can eat and drink and she’s gotta socialize occasionally to steal ideas from people to use in her writing.
Despite being lazy, I do manage to write some. I’ve been worse lately than usual, though, and I’m seeing NaNoWriMo as an opportunity to snap out of that. To re-establish good routines and rituals that I can keep using from January (but slightly more relaxed). So I’ve got a lot riding on finding a good system this November.
I’ll start by brainstorming some things that put me in a creative and/or productive mood:
- Pleasant/epic instrumental music or cool ambient noise.
- Coffee laced with cinnamon (yes, I do that, it tastes cozy)
- Peppermint tea
- Digital art that make me want to tell the story behind the image
- Visualizing a future where my novel is finished
- Fresh air and comfortable clothing
- Actual deadlines with real risk/reward if not met
- Talking about my story with other writers (creative, NOT productive)
- Having set time windows for work/play
- Metaphors
Wow. That actually required me to do a lot of thinking and consideration. Alright, good! Now, how does this list help me? Immensely, as it turns out. For one, I realized I am more productive when I’m both very comfortable and have some kind of deadline. This means that once and for all, I need to schedule one chunk of time to write. Sadly, I know exactly when that time needs to be, and I need to make some sacrifices if I want to make it work properly. I won’t get into the details, but I know some of what I need to do for maximum productivity.
Okay, now I think I’ll take out the things that help me be productive and focus solely on what makes me want to create:
- Epic music
- Digital art
- Visualizing my novel being complete/published
- Metaphors
- Someone wanting/waiting to read my words
- Brainstorming out loud to myself
- Fresh air/feeling the world
- Making/doing something (with my hands, not writing)
Alright. That gave me some stuff to go on. It’s generating a few ideas slowly churning around in my brain. In order to get a good routine back up and running, I need to create both an environment where I’m my most productive, and that makes my creativity strong enough to beat up my laziness. This means everything involved in my writing routine has to help me nourish one of these ingredients. Productivity and Creativity.
I don’t have time to spend all day here in this post, going into details and planning out my entire routine for the world to see, but there will definitely be a follow-up to this post once I’ve figured it all out. Thanks for helping me brainstorm!
Well, that was a lot more hard work than I expected to put into this blog post. It actually required a lot of thinking and considering. Totally worth it! I think I’ve actually gotten something useful. It would bring me great joy to know if this was helpful for anyone else out there, but it’s almost equally rewarding just to know it was helpful for me.
Best of luck to everyone on these last few days of NaNoWriMo prepping! It’s a big task to take on but you know what? We’re all amazing and we can totally do this. Believe it.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a novel to write.
Writing Up My Serotonin 