It’s really not that hard. If you can do 1,000 words in an hour you just have to do 50 hours – a bit more than 2 straight days.
30 days of that’ll give you 30,000 words, so you need to do 1,667 each day to reach 50,000.
Or you can just do like I do, about 2,500 words each day to finish early.
It’s really important to track progress with NaNo, mainly so you stay motivated. Some people do fine with the stats bar that the site gives you:
I do this each month, write a novel or a nonfiction book, and sometimes I do two. It’s pretty easy for me now, and I do these strategies all the time, in various scales and levels depending on what I’m writing.
Instead of trying to explain further, let’s just get into it, all right?
Good, that meant I’d be cornering the market on that one, but thankfully with the following nonfiction books, I could still learn a bit:
Looking at the Competition
Don’t underestimate that ‘Look Inside’ either, and how you can hook the audience there. In fact, you have to hook the audience there (do you ever not look at that before buying a book?).
Researching Your Topic
For this novel I did what I often do, I started a notes page early:
Sometimes I’ll just copy/paste that into my notes document and write from there, rewriting a bit, adding stuff…just doing work. Here’s what pages of that often look like:
This next one was a great help in figuring out the personality and looks of my characters:
The next pages mostly are, and these names have been changed. I did use those photos for inspiration on what my characters looked like, and what they were like, however.
Writing the Book
This map here is for the main alien entry port, and that’s where a lot of action take place, especially at the end when I’ve got three teams of men coming in from three different directions. It’s hard to keep track of all that, and I’d recommend finding and using whatever can help.
Getting that Great Cover
Coming up with a good cover is one leg of your three-legged eBook marketing stool (the other two being blurb and Look Inside).
I knew I wanted custom art, because I wanted a scene from the book. Now, the scene wasn’t written, but I’d write to it, and I’d write to the character on the cover as well.
Here were the rough cover images that I could choose from in the early design phase:
Well, that’s about it – that’s getting a NaNo book together…in a nutshell. That’s how you make something from 'nothing.'
I’m still working on my book – I have maybe 5,000 words to go on it – and then I’ll start reading through it, fixing the mistakes, taking out the placeholder text, and getting it ready for publication. I’ll probably get the print version ready, then do another proof. After that it’s onto Amazon and then it’s done – I just head onto the next book.
Will I do some marketing for this one? I should, but honestly, I hardly do any of that anymore. No, I think this book will just sit there like the rest…waiting.
And you’re waiting…to do what exactly? Finish your 1,667 words for today? Well, get writing!