Get Ready for NaNoWriMo!

It’s never too early to start planning your entry in 2020’s National Writing Month Contest this coming November. Writers tend to put things off until the last moment, and so the first week in January 2020 seems about the right time to begin sketching out that amazing fifty-thousand word novel you’ve been turning over in your mind for years and making it finally materialize to become a bestseller and possibly win a Pulitzer Prize later one. Stranger things have happened . . . 

But in order to get started and push through your grand writing project, you’ll need plenty of personal technology gadgets to give Charles Dickens or Mark Twain a run for their money. Here are a few suggestions as you pick up your quill and begin scribbling.

Professional writers are adamant that beginning writers turn off  the distraction of Spellcheck. A rough first draft is not about punctuation, grammar, or spelling. It’s about birthing an exciting but crude narrative. Once the full trajectory has been established, in writing, then the finer points like spelling and grammar can be fiddled with. 

Then use an app like Novelist, Writing Shed, Bear, or Writer Tools, to decide on your template and for tips on narrative cohesion, plot points, and warnings when your pen strays into a cliche minefield.