NanoWrimo, Hemingway and Overcoming Procrastination

_{Image by Lubos Houska from Pixabay, Modified by me using GIMP}

It is time! I've been beating about the bush for far too long! Spending the majority of my limited time and capacity on things that aren't going to get me where I want to be.

It has been my intention become a novelist since I finished university in 2007, so I've decided to give it my full attention throughout November and take part in NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo stands for 'National Novel Writing Month.'

National Novel Writing Month is an annual Internet-based creative writing project that takes place during the month of November. Participants attempt to write a 50,000-word manuscript between November 1 and November 30.

_{source: Wikipedia}

As I'm 6 days late starting, I plan on writing between 2100 - 2500 words/day for the remainder of November. This will fulfill the target of 50000+ words to make up a full novel manuscript. I will write an update blog about my progress once a week on steem, but these posts will not take the form of any of the fiction from my manuscript.

The point of this exercise is to finish a first draft for edit and future submission to literary agents. This is why I can't give any previews on steem due to potential future first publication issues.

The Novelist's Arsenal of Tools

When I woke up this morning I realized I would need to find some tools to help make this task easier. Planning character arcs, tracking timelines and plotting a novel is a herculean task. After a bit of google research, I found Scrivener and decided to go with it for two reasons.

One - there is a free 30 day trial. Meaning I can finish my manuscript and decide if I want to buy the year licence afterwards.

Two - the price for the yearly licence is very reasonable.

I've spent a large portion of the day working my way through the Scrivener tutorial and it does seem to have pretty much everything I need. The only thing that is missing is plot arc sheets. However this is no biggie as I can find them online and attach them in dedicated sub-folders in Scrivener.

Inspiration, Recommendations and Hemingway

Inspiration comes in many forms. A big part of finding the focus to write a novel comes from making the right choices, both mentally and physically.

As far as the physical is concerned, I am going to start swimming again at least once every three days. I'm also going to cut out all alcohol as my body takes a long time to process it due to liver problems. Drinking, however fun it may be at the time, can leave me completely useless for many days.

As to the mental, the saying 'food for thought' describes what I plan to do to keep myself in the writing mindset. In the first year of my writing degree we were taught about the importance of reading widely to inspire the creative process. It works in the same way as food in that respect, what you consume mentally effects the health of your creative drive.

I recently commented on a fantastic piece of fiction called The Spark + Unbewusstes written by @carolkean on steem.

During this comment conversation we talked about the process of writing, discussed authors we have both read and she recommended a few things I should read.

A writer needs to be a reader! It is one of the single most important factors for success, as reading widely will nourish the subconscious of an aspiring author. What you read during the writing process can effect how the writing flows, but the most important thing is to read. Binge watching Netflix just won't have the same effect 😉

It's for all of these reasons that I decided to take the recommendation of both @carolkean and @crescendoofpeace to read The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway during this month long writing odyssey.

The final thing I learned at university is to remove distractions.

_{Photo by Thibault Penin on Unsplash}

Overcoming Procrastination

Someone somewhere once said an extremely quotable thing:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

_{P.s. this quote wasn't from Einstein}

What have I been doing over and over again expecting different results? To put it bluntly the answer is spending too much of my creative energy on steem. The truth is that this is currently not the best place to further the goal of becoming a professional creative writer. It is the hours of networking that steem demands that provides a massive distraction. Hat's off to anyone who can keep up that level of activity while working on other major projects. I know my limits and burnout is a very real thing for me. Most of that burn out on steem comes not from the writing, but from the social interaction.

Before joining steem I was addicted to Facebook. Steem is an improvement from that worthless Fbook addiction, but none of this changes the fact that I have an addictive personality when it comes to social media. This is why I have to limit my interaction on steem this month.

Despite all this, I am not negative about steem. I'm not going to power down my hard earned stake and stop posting. I may post less over the next 30 days though.

I know what I need to do and that is remove those things that will cause me to procrastinate. I am therefor removing all social media, along with eSteem/partiko, from my phone.

It's time to get serious! Reading, writing, exercising and not much else.

Wish me luck 🙂

All pictures used are screenshots (fair use) or creative commons licence, credited beneath the image. If you have enjoyed this blog post, please do check out my homepage @raj808 for similar content. Thank you.