niltoy.net

I get a lot of questions about word-counts. “If I write more words than I need on one day, can I swap them onto the count for a another day when I don’t write enough?” “Can I write ahead?” “Do I have to write 500 words every day?” “What about when I’m on vacation?” And the list goes on…

The answer is simple: to hit the 100K mark by the end of October 2006, you have to *average* 329 words a day. Every day. There are 304 days between January 1 and October 31 this year, so that would have you finishing up on the last day. But you can always adjust your personal count to accommodate your schedule. Write every other day, twice a week, once a month… Whatever suits your lifestyle and writing style.

Can you write ahead? I don’t know. Can you? It’s perfectly allowable to write more than the minimum recommendation of 500 words a day. But it’s not a requirement.

Do you have to write 500 words a day every day? Nope! At 500 words a day, you get 2 days off each week. In fact, you only have to write 20 days a month to get 10K at 500 words a day. If you write 1,000 words a day, you’ll be done in 5 months, instead of 10. The math is simple enough that even I can work it out.

What about vacation? You can take a notebook and write your ideas while you lounge by the pool. Or take a tape recorder and dictate ideas while you ride in the car on that cross-country trip. Or leave it until you get back, rested, recharged and full of ideas. Even your brain needs a break from time to time. It allows your subconscious time to come up with all sorts of creative ideas.

We’re not here to crack whips across your back to make you write. We’re here to help and inspire you to get over and around various kinds of obstacles with your writing. Stuck for a plot idea? Need help with a detail and need an expert’s advice? Need to whine, bitch or moan? Want to brag about your word count or a breakthrough in your story? Feeling a need to procrastinate? Come on over to the NILTOY Forum for help, congrats or a good, swift butt-kicking. Whatever you need, we’re here to help.

When I first heard about the NaNoWriMo site and challenge, I looked at the average daily word count, and thought, “I can do this. Grad school was harder than this.”

But grad school didn’t require a plot, character development, world-building or any of the other things that a novel requires. Grad school is pretty cut-and-dried: figure out what the professors want to read about, spew 20 pages of whatever you’ve had to memorize or research, check the grammar and spelling, then turn it in on time. No big deal.

Fifty-thousand words is a BIG deal! One hundred-thousand words is a HUGE deal! Most people would look at that number and go, “Nuh-uh. No way! I haven’t got that much inside my head!”

Nonsense! Many of us write more than that in a few months in emails and forum postings, not to mention blogs, journal entries and other sorts of writing. It all comes back to basics: start with an idea; develop the idea, either in your head or on paper; expand on the idea; and make writing a habit. Don’t let fear stop you. This is not a terribly painful process, and think how good you’ll feel when it’s time to edit the piece!

They say that it only takes 21 days to make a habit. So, give it a try. For 21 days, write a minimum of 500 words a day. That’s about 2 single-spaced pages typed. Or write by hand, if you prefer that. Allow the creativity to flow through you. Talk to your characters, ask them questions, let them tell the story. If your work is fantasy or science fiction, make up your own facts if you have to. Suspend disbelief; not just as a reader, but also as a writer. Suspend the disbelief that it is not possible; it is possible. Authors write and publish novels of varying lengths all the time. New authors are continuously being published. Even if publication is not your main goal, writing can be personally satisfying.

You’re already sitting at the computer as you read this, so why not try your 500 words now? What have you got to lose, but a little time? And maybe, just a little of that fear that’s holding you back from starting that masterpiece…

Many people I know make the same resolutions each year: lose weight, get fit, spend more time with family, spend less money… On and on the list goes. So many promises. And by the end of the year, so few promises kept.

Lots of writers I know make the same sort of promises to themselves: “I will spend more time writing;” “I will finish that manuscript;” “I will make the connections I need to get my work published.”

Me? I try to avoid these traps. Personally, I can’t stand the guilt that comes at the end of the year when I have to face those broken promises to myself. Nope! No New Year’s Resolutions for me!

And then a funny thing happened… Someone suggested this project and this site. I am now obsessed with writing, and with tweaking the website. For the first 2 days of this year, I have more than made my writing goal of a minimum of 500 words a day. In fact, it wouldn’t take much to nudge it up to a minimum of 1,000 words a day. Once the kids are in bed, it would only take about an hour… As long as the ideas flow, that is.

Then we come to The Wall. The Fear of Failure. What happens when I run out of ideas? What happens when I get sick and just don’t feel like writing? What happens when I realize I’ve just written 20,000 words of crap? That’s where NILTOY really makes the difference.

Come on over to the forum for some sympathy, commiseration, motivation or just plain butt-kicking. Read how others beat the slump. Get some writing prompts, or participate in a challenge. Or take a day off (but only one!). At 500 words a day, you can afford a day off once in a while. And the more you write, the faster it will go. While the rest of us are still slogging away in June, you could be entering your editing or rewriting phase. Imagine how good that will feel!

We’re so glad you have stopped by. We hope you will stick around, join the fun, and start bragging to the rest of us about how well you are doing! Goodness knows, we could sure use the inspiration!

Sometimes ideas are slow to form, and even more slow to come to fruition. Other times, dreams can flash into reality like the flame on a gas stove, burn brightly, and quickly bring about transformation. This site and this area are examples of just such a flash of inspiration.

Only a couple of weeks ago, a writer suggested the idea for NILTOY, and the site. Within days, the basic skeleton for the site was functional and the search for content was on. But hey, we’re writers, right? We should be able to come up with something wonderful and creative anytime we need to… right…. Well, when Christmas is just around the corner, and the prospect of either going to visit family and friends or entertaining them at your house rears its head, things change. Houses get cleaned, laundry gets piled up and washed, shopping gets done. But writing? Who has time, especially just now?

Well, we think that anybody has time to write on our schedule. At only 500 words a day, 5 days a week, anyone can finish a 100,000-word novel in just ten months. All it requires is devotion to the schedule, no matter what. And motivation. And inspiration. And maybe lots of chocolate. Definitely caffeine.

So, good luck on this first day of the new year, and of NILTOY! We will all keep kicking each other in the butts until our works are done, or until the word-count is reached, or until the end of October. Enjoy your new routine! And welcome!