The Author Wheel Podcast
The Author Wheel Podcast
Celebrating the Journey: The Final NaNoWriMo Episode
It's the final countdown! How are you doing with NaNoWriMo?
Whether or not you "win" this month, you've done something amazing. You've created something out of nothing and gotten words on the page. That's incredible.
Which is why...
Tip #1: Celebrate! Whether you wrote 50k or 20k, recognize your effort this month.
Tip #2: Take a break! Don't immediately jump into editing or publishing this book. Give yourself a little space to breathe and think. Then go back to it with fresh eyes in the new year.
If you've found these short "betweeniesodes" helpful, please email us and let us know! We're discussing new monthly themes to keep the tips rolling, like goal-setting and planning for the New Year in December, and editing strategies in January. We'd love your feedback!
You can reach us at info@authorwheel.com.
Want even more productivity tips? Check out our online course, Finish Your Novel Faster: https://www.authorwheel.com/finish-your-novel-faster
Get ready to accelerate your writing speed, stay motivated, and keep your story rolling!
Don't forget to join Megan's new Substack newsletter, Clarify | Simplify | Implement, where she's sharing all her thoughts on writing, publishing, and the author industry.
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Hi everyone and welcome to the final author wheel, Nano-Rymo Betweeny Soad. I'm award winning fantasy author, Megan Haskell.
Speaker 2:And I am USA Today best selling mystery thriller author Greta Boris, and together we are the author wheel.
Speaker 1:So when this episode airs, we are going to be at the very end of the month. It's the final countdown, the final deadline, and we hope that everyone is way ahead of their goal and has more than achieved the 50,000 words. But if you're still heads down, well, stop listening to this and go back and go writing. Get writing, yes, finish it up. You got this, you got this. But for everybody else, if you're done or very, very close to done, congratulations.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:You just won.
Speaker 2:Nano-Rymo. And let me just throw in a little. Even if you wrote 25,000 words and not the 50, is it 50 or 55? They?
Speaker 1:won 50, right? I think it's 50.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's 50. Yeah, even if it's half that amount, the 25 or whatever, that's a heck of a lot of words for one month. So whatever you did, you're a winner in our book, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And that's the thing. I think I'm going to be 100% transparent here. I have never actually won Nano-Rymo.
Speaker 2:Me neither.
Speaker 1:And for me, in part it's because we host Thanksgiving. November is a very big, very busy month for me and my family, and so it's just, it's very. It's a challenge beyond a challenge to even try, but I always try because, even if I don't quote unquote, when I'm still making progress, I'm still have that forward momentum, I'm still hopefully writing more words than I otherwise would be and pushing myself to do more and write more and write faster, and those are all tremendous goals. And so even if yeah, even if you got 25,000 words, even if you got 10,000 words this month, that's 10,000 words you didn't have last month. So congratulations, you're doing great.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, and it's true. When I was a personal trainer, I would always set a high goal for clients work out five days a week. I knew they weren't gonna, but if you tell them five days a week, they might get three. If you told them three, they'd probably only get one or two. So, aiming for that 50,000, even if you don't get there, you probably got a whole lot more words, as Megan said, than you would have gotten. So just pat yourself on the back. That's a great job.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and that's our first tip is to celebrate no matter what you did. If you tried this month, if you were consistent, if you put words on the page, if you made an effort and if you got more done than you otherwise would have, all of that is worth celebrating. And if you did achieve the goal of writing 50,000 words, and if that was actually your full, complete manuscript, celebrate it, right, everybody should be celebrating pursuing this crazy, brutal, slightly masochistic goal of writing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So don't forget to celebrate.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Buy yourself a glass of wine or a little cupcake or something, and enjoy it, because you've done something really, really hard.
Speaker 2:Yep. So tip number two after you've reached the end of your manuscript, we really suggest that you take a break. It's nice to gain some distance. Don't go back and immediately start revising and playing with it and reading with it and all that. Take a break as long as you can take. So celebrate the holidays stress-free, have some fun. Put the manuscript away.
Speaker 2:I know this is one of those things Stephen King says. He puts everything down for at least two weeks. Some people don't have that luxury because they have a deadline, but chances are if you're doing nano-Rymo, you don't. So give it a break. Then in a few weeks, load that manuscript onto some kind of reader that you cannot edit. So if you have the ability to format it into a Kindle book and put it onto your Kindle, that's great. Otherwise, you can put in PDF format and put it onto some kind of reader.
Speaker 2:And then what I like to do is just block out a couple of days and I read my book as if I was reading a book that I just picked up at a bookstore. I do keep a yellow pad next to me in case I want to jot down some notes, because I just can't help myself, but I cannot edit the manuscript directly and that will give you a good sense of the flow of the novel, how that story holds together, maybe the places that are dragging or maybe some plot holes you need to fill in. But do a quick read a day or two, as much time as you can afford to sit around and read and read it as quickly as you can and just make some notes, but don't do any revisions yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that's really key. Number one, giving yourself the mental space to take that break so that you can read it as a reader and not as an editor or not as the author. And then number two, that when you do go back and read it as an editor, you now have a fresh set of eyes. So I think those are two different brain spaces to be in, but they're both important for making sure that your book actually is ready to go off, to pitch to agents or self-publish, depending on which path to publication you've decided you want to choose.
Speaker 2:Right, and speaking of getting your book ready for publication, if you've found these tips that we've done through October November helpful and if you'd like us to kind of do another set of tips for revising your manuscript that we could release in January, please do email us at info at authorwheelcom. You don't have to write some big long email, just a quick email and just say yes, revision, please. You don't even have to say please, just say yes, revision. I mean it could be that quick. Just shoot us a line so that we know and if that's something that you guys find helpful, we would be very happy to give you our best revision tips in the month of January.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely All right. Well, that's it for the NaNoWriMo tips. Thank you all so much for joining us on our Betweeny Soads as we continue this authorwheel podcast adventure. We do hope they've been helpful, for sure, but do please email us so that we actually know and don't feel like we're shouting into the void, because that can definitely be a problem. And in the meantime, keep your stories rolling.
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