In no particular order:
- If you have no shame and don’t mind having the world see you fail, stating your goals publicly is less effective than if you care about things like integrity, keeping your word, and what others think of you.
- Even if you fail to hit the 50k NaNo mark, though, aiming for that mark helps you get more done than you would have gotten done otherwise.
- You get a lot done when you write four hours a day and don’t allow yourself to check emails or blogs. But it’s hard to do that every day, every week. (I plan to write M-F on my WIP between 3-5. I think I’ll get loads done. If/when I fail, I won’t care what you think, so telling you doesn’t motivate me. But still, planning and failing is better than not planning at all, I think. It took me thirty years and many tries to quit smoking, but finally it worked.)
- Writing 30,000 really bad words in two weeks is better than writing nothing in two weeks. At the end of the 30,000 bad words, you at least know what’s not working. Edison said, “I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory.” If we don’t have the 3,000 theories or the 30,000 words that seem reasonable but don’t work, we’ll have a much harder time finding the few that do work.
- Not having to blog for a whole month helps you write books but it also allows you to do so many other things, like cook and clean and spend time with the kids. (hmm. I think I see a lot more simple lists in my blogging future.)
- If you can put both a character with a strong desire and an antagonist motivated to the thwart the main character into the first chapter, it’s a good thing.
- Writers, as a tribe, are very supportive people.
- Someone needs to start a NaNoPloMo in October. National Novel Plotting Month. I will definitely do this next year if I remember/have time/plan to do NaNoWriMo again. I will take the month of October to outline a new novel, and to get to know the characters and what they want and why they can’t have what they want. Yeah! October! Booyah! I will plot, plot, plot in October. (And you all know how well I follow through on my public pronouncements.)
- Blueberry, strawberry, and pineapple fruit smoothies work much better for perking you up in the afternoon than coffee, and you don’t get the caffeine hangover.
OK that’s about all I’ve got today. Thanks for your attention. 
(What about you? Any lessons you want to share for my edification?)
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category: The Writing Life
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Yay!! Sally’s back! I missed you.
Trisha Slay´s last [type] ..David Maybury’s Picture Book Christmas Tree
Lessons I learned in Nov:
1. No matter how many times I tell myself rejection is part of the process, I can still get knocked on my butt by the disappointment. Crying helps a wee bit. Wine doesn’t help at all. Listening to rejection stories from successful authors is about the best medicine.
2. There is absolutely no place in my kitchen to set a roast turkey where my cat can’t get to it.
3. Even with prewarning & a good cause for it, it stinks when a blog I follow goes away for a whole month.
Welcome back!!
Thanks for the warm welcome back, Trisha.
I also love successful writers’ rejection stories. They fill me with hope. But I think wine is helpful, too. A little bit to wind down. I am never bothered by rejections, though. That’s a benefit of believing in a God who is not just a watch-maker, but who directs my steps. Makes my life easy.
I haven’t been back over to your blog yet. I’m looking forward to catching up. I wonder if you have any writer room pictures up.
From NaNoWriMo, I learned:
I can write 7,000 words in a day if I really have to. (Those are not all good, polished, useable words, but it’s still a lot of progress.)
Whew! 7000? That’s fantastic. I think the most I’ve ever done is 4000.
Welcome back, Sally! I have no lessons learned from NaNoWWriMo because I didn’t even make an attempt. And then I only blogged once right at the end of the month. I had a hard time getting on the computer at all, for some reason, and have some serious email-catch-up to do. So I guess November was my in-a-writing-funk month. God is at work, though, and that’s the important thing! I’m striving to be thankful in all circumstances
.
Loren Warnemuende´s last [type] ..Understanding the Big Picture
Hey Loren. I’m glad God is working and glad to hear that your striving to be thankful. I’m thankful that you stopped by. Where do you live? I’d love to meet you for coffee and chit chat face to face. I think you live up north somewhere, though. Is that right?
Are you on facebook?
Hi Sally!
Sorry to be so slow responding. Yikes! It’s the 13th already!
I wish we could connect…but yes, I’m up in SE Michigan. Feel free to pop up here any time though
. Until then, look me up on facebook if I don’t get to you first! I have a feeling that we’d probably find a friend connection within a person or two seeing that you’re an mk from Asia (if I’m remembering right), and I’m an mk, too.
Loren Warnemuende´s last [type] ..Understanding the Big Picture