Tips

Also, I noticed last year when it came to the final count, the NaNo robots had a different number than my machine. It actually worked out better - their number was higher. If you plan on stopping at 50,000, you might want to add a few hundred words as a buffer just in case.

Terridactile

2008 - St. Joseph's Table

I made a schedule, and so far I'm sticking to it -- I have specific writing goals for each day, plus some wiggle room on the weekends if I need a break, and I DO NOT WRITE outside of those goals. Any push outside the lines and I would burn out, so I'm not going there. I'm treating it more like work than anything -- I don't take it home with me, as it were. Of course, my prep work really helps with this. I have a detailed outline, list of characters and locations (with descriptions), and a printed, color-coded schedule. Maybe I'm taking the fun out it, but I'd rather force myself to finish and do a good job of it than try to wing it and risk getting bogged down after one week (hello, 2008!). So that's my tip: If you don't do well without a structure, set one up. Otherwise, you'll just get lost in the mud, asking where you are and how all these people who showed up fit into the plot.

Of course, if you can just wing it, more power to you. :-)

2006 - How to Survive an Earthquake (50,600)
2007 - No Title (5,000ish)
2008 - Moon Dog (15776)
2009 - The Baker's Apprentice -- updates M-F @ http://joanna-nanowrimo2009.blogspot.com

I'm way too new to be giving any real advice, but a friend of mine sent me a couple of links that someone might find useful, and this seemed like a good place to post them.

Random plot point generator (it basically makes suggestions for how to torment your characters, which is where drama comes from, right?):
http://futureisfiction.com/plotpoint/index.cgi

Fake person generator (name pretty much says it all, it creates a fake name, address, etc. for you to use):
http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/

Hmm, not sure if it counts as advice or not but a handy few thoughts.

Everything you write counts toward your word count. Even if you start writing a sentence and have to go answer the phone(and WHY are you people answering the phone in November?! Don't you know it's Nano time?!) and come back completely at a loss as to what you were saying DON'T YOU DARE DELETE IT! Just highlight it in a nice neon color, I use yellow, and go on typing as if it wasn't even there. Upon editing, this would be in December if you all remember, you can go through and take out all yellowed bits. But you wrote those words. Just because they're useless to the finished product doesn't mean a thing.

Also, contractions are not your friend. Use them in dialog, for character believability and ditch them everywhere else. Never should you have don't in a paragraph of description when you can have do not.

Similarly, write out numbers. 21 in Word counts as one word. Twenty one is two.

I know this is starting to sound like something off the "Reaching 50,000" forum but, frankly, a lot of that stuff seems like cheating to me. I refuse to use chapter titles or give people seventeen names, but you'd be surprised what these things will do to your word count. If you don't believe me, go do Find/Replace on all your contractions.

Anyways, anything I think up when it isn't one in the morning I'll pass on later. *waves*

OH! PS: One more. Never be afraid of the crack scene. Crack, if you aren't familiar with the fanfiction usage, is any scene, plot or pairing that is so out there that the reader would need to be high to understand it. Practically it means any scene that's pointless, hyperactive, weird and random. If you're stuck, bored or otherwise unmotivated drop a load of crack on your favorite character.
Have them stumble onto the wrong bus on accident and, when they get off, discover that they've been taken to a mall near the art college where all the other shoppers keep bursting into song.
Have a random drunk person show up at their job. (Not as cracky as you'd think. We had TWO different drunks in the past week at Chick-fil-a) Flashing, puking, falling asleep in inappropriate places and just general annoying drunkenness can create all sorts of word count fun.
Even better, get one of your MCs drunk.
Oh! Or have your MC get a box of glitter dumped into his/her hair. That stuff does NOT come out. (The fact that this is a good way to stick a couple dozen mean Anti-Twilight comments into your book is beside the point.)

It might be worthless to the book in the long run, but if it gets you giggling at your own work and dying to get back to that computer then it's worth every stupid turn of phrase.

Try to look unimportant. The enemy may be low on ammo.

Too much description can be a bad thing, but I find when I'm writing that it's easier to take it out after the fact than try to keep it short as your working.

Half the stuff I read doesn't have enough description, or the characters surroundings, or the characters themselves.

For example, instead of just saying 'he walked into the dark forest' say:

'He walked into the dark forest, chills going down his spine as he realized the nightmares his reality was showing him.'

If you wanna go all out say:

'As he walked into he dark forest, his eyes were drawn to the claw like limbs of the trees. He could feel the crunch of dead things beneath his feet, causing him to shudder. This forest was out of his nightmares, and he knew eventually he would succumb to his fears, falling into the depths of despair.'

I would probably go with the latter, simply for the word count and for the fact it sounds cool.

Make your

I have found carryin a small notebook with me is very helpful. I was waitng an hour this morning to get a blood test and I was able to write a few pages in the notebook of my story. And it never fails I get ideas for scene or plot line on the commute home.

i also think If you can write a bit and then walk away fromyour story for a few hours, you come back to the story refreshed and energized.

Also, no matter how many times it's written on the site, getting rid of that darn internal editor/censor. A lot of my characters this year are based on people I know. I have fictionalized them and also renamed them. Well, lo and behold now as I am moving through the story, I can't remember who has what name and don't want to take the time to go back and map everyone out.

Focus on the fact NO ONE will read it your NaNo work unless you allow it. For the time being I am going to back to their real names and will change it later. I even have a character based on some of Matthew McConaughy characters. For NaNo, he will just have to be Matt M : )

Terridactile

2008 - St. Joseph's Table