NaNoWriMo for second drafts

I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year. I’ve tried it before and found that a thirty-day month in which I write 50,000 words is doable, but NaNo lends itself well to first drafts and not so well to revision. Think about it: If you’re doing NaNo this year, you’ve probably spent part of October writing an outline or some kind of map of where you plan to go, and then once November 1 comes, you’re off like a shot, racing through your daily or weekly word count so you have a serviceable first draft at the end of the month.

Second—or third, or tenth—drafts can’t be raced through. Sure, more planning before the first draft usually means less revision and fewer drafts, but what about those times when authors have stumbled upon a great direction in which to take their manuscript? I wouldn’t want to write an okay book and give up the chance to write a good or even great book just because it would take more work and more time.

Even if you don’t have any breakthroughs that change the scope of your novel, you may find that the pressure to make your daily word count causes you to rush through certain passages that you’re not quite sure how to revise. As I learned in my MFA program, you start thinking (and maybe you’re even aware you’re thinking this), “Gee, I hope I get away with this.” That’s a reliable sign that you’re not engaging with your WIP as deeply as you should be—and it signals that, no, you probably won’t get away with it.

So don’t feel bad for not doing NaNo this year if you’ve already finished the first draft of your WIP. But if you want to get in on the fun and if you love the boost to your writing that NaNo can give you, consider these tips for adapting NaNoWriMo to your existing draft:

Tune out the pressure to do “normal” NaNoWriMo. For reasons I’ve explained above, it’s not a good idea to force the NaNo structure onto a second draft. Trying to make that work is like being that guy at the gym who brags about lifting every day. He might impress newbies, but nobody who’s used to working out looks up to him. Without a change in routine—resting, stretching, and varying activity—he’s headed for injury. Don’t injure your manuscript by insisting on using the traditional NaNoWriMo setup during revision.

Set a goal that measures your progress in hours, not words. Can you spare an hour a day for your writing in November? How about ten hours a week? Whatever your goal is, you can then approach it as you would for a regular NaNoWriMo: parcel out the smaller steps you’ll need to take to reach that goal, monitor your progress, and adjust your writing times as necessary to reach the amount of hours you wanted.

In regular NaNoWriMo, you might split your 50,000 words evenly, for 1,667 words per day. Or you might write 1,000 words per weekday and make up the difference on weekends. For revision, let’s say you want to average an hour of writing time each day, but you know your busy work schedule doesn’t allow for it. So you commit to half an hour of revising during your lunch breaks during the week, and on the weekends, you’d write another two hours on Saturday and two and a half hours on Sunday, for a total of seven hours. Whatever you decide, make sure you set a realistic but challenging goal that will encourage you to spend enough time in your novel to produce quality revisions.

If you want to really maximize your writing time, plan your revisions extensively. You can cram this in during the couple days before November, or—my preferred approach—each time you reach a new chapter, go over your notes and decide which are the easiest to implement. Sort them into categories ranging from “easy—I can do this during my lunch break” to “really difficult—I’ll need several hours of concentration because this change affects the whole chapter.” (If a novel-wide change is needed, I still keep the focus on whatever chapter I’m working on; it brings that change to a manageable level.)

So whether you’re a NaNo veteran who wants to switch things up or a newbie who’s never heard of NaNoWriMo before, you can use this process to energize your revision. Having a 30-day plan will keep you on track and show you the light at the end of the tunnel, and the sense of community with other writers will encourage you when you’re uncertain about your revision—which, remember, can’t knock you off course from your goals because you're going for X hours, not Y words.

Happy writing!