NaNo Prep: Make a Box for Your Bully

As we dive into NaNo Prep season, we’ve talked to some participants to get the inside scoop on how to best prepare for November. Today, author Mur Lafferty shares how she manages to make her inner editor be quiet:

I’m writing a new book now. I hate it. 

This is standard, whether you’re a pro or a beginner. The idea in my head was so glorious and perfect, but the minute I put it into words I feel like a finger-painting four year old, except kids take more pleasure in their creation than I do. Nah, this is drek. 

And I hear them, the little whispers in my ear: “This is crap. Just quit. No, not just this book, you should quit it all, stop calling yourself an author. Go back to corporate America and make room for someone else who’s more talented." I turn my head and sitting on my shoulder is a little person shaped like a potato. It’s lumpy and ugly and has a permanent smirk on its face like it knows it’s better than me. 

This is my bully, my constant companion, my internal editor––and I would bet my next advance (that isn’t coming, remember, because this book is crap and definitely won’t sell) that you have one similar to it. 

My bully’s name is Travis, by the way. But I’m not here to talk to you about Travis the bully potato. I’m here to talk about your potato, or whatever your editor looks like, and to talk about how to prep for the novel you are going to write in November. 

1. Identify your bully. 

As I said, mine is a potato. No, I don’t know why it’s a potato, shut up. You might follow standard pop culture mythology and make yours into a devil, or an angel with black wings, or a little version of you, with a goatee, dressed like a delinquent. Incidentally, your muse is usually the one on your other shoulder. Mine isn’t another vegetable, although it would be balanced and tidy if it were a pretty vegetable maybe like a fennel bulb with long flowing hair. But it’s more like a friendly fairy that is easily harassed into silence by Travis the Potato. Freaking Travis, man. I hate that guy. But anyway, once you identify your bully, and realize that what it’s telling you is all lies, you can accept that you’re not realistic when your subconscious says to quit; you’re just having fear. Doubts. And that’s normal. 

2. Grab it! 

Once you can identify and spot the wily bully, grab it with all your might. It’s like a nettle, which I have never seen, but I hear you have to be firm when you grab or else you’ll get stung. Instead of grabbing nettles, grab that bully by its potato and don’t let go. It will whine. It will fuss and squirm. It will tell you that without it, you will write something terrible and not even know it. That’s OK, just don’t let it go.

3. Get a box. 

We’ve been talking metaphorically up to now. No, I don’t really think a potato named Travis sits on my shoulder. But I’ll admit I sometimes do something physical to shut it up. I’ll close the office door. I’ll turn up music so I can’t hear it. Or I’ll get the time-out box, which is a little chest on my desk. The bully goes into the box while I write, and I promise I will let it out when I’m done. It can complain and insult me all it wants, I can’t hear it from the box. So either imagine your box, or heck, get yourself a real box. NaNoWriMo is not for the faint of heart, and the sturdy-hearted writers have boxes, dang it. 

(Aside––why am I talking so much about potatoes? Because the bully is what will keep you from your novel. If you’ve failed NaNoWriMo in the past, then you know that unless something catastrophic happened, you quit because you had doubts, or fears, or just wasn’t sure what to write next and you let the blank page––the bully’s cousin––get the better of you. Before you write word one on your book, you must decide where to put that bully, or it will do all it can to stop you.)

4. Spread the word. 

What you’re doing is a big deal, a large venture, and if you’re in the USA, then it’s happening during a major holiday as well. You will have a greater chance to succeed if you tell the people close to you what you’re up to, and what it means to you. That last part is key. You’re not just trying out a new hobby, you’re challenging yourself to accomplish something at a pace that some pro writers find difficult to maintain, much less beginning writers. If your family, friends, roommates, etc, don’t respect that, it’s going to be much harder on you. Establish a time you want to write daily and then request help from those close to you to give you the space you need. And if they don’t help you, call them all potatoes and slam the door.

5. Make an outline. Or don’t. 

Outlining can be quite useful. It gives you a roadmap that you can follow as you work on your book. If you don’t know what to write that day, then the outline should point you in the right direction. However. You might be like me, and the thought of writing an outline makes you want to take all the advice that the muffled potato in the box is still shouting at you: quit quit quit. It’s possible that maybe outlining isn’t for you. And that’s ok. Some prefer maps. Some can’t fathom the shape of the story until they’re out with a flashlight, making their way through it, only knowing what to write when their light falls on it. That’s how I prefer to write. So yeah, make an outline. Unless that isn’t something that works for you. 

6. Don’t fall into the rabbit hole of advice. Even this one. 

I’m a pro writer (that still feels weird to say) and I still get paralyzed when looking up advice and tips and tricks instead of actually writing. Many beginning writers have been halted in their tracks when they come across writing advice that goes counter with how they do things. "If you don’t do [X] then you’re not a real writer,” is my favorite. It makes me want to find my knives.

I’m betting you know more than you think you do about how to do this. The rules are simple: get to 50k by the end of the month. For most, that means writing daily. That may not work for you. For others, 10000+ words on the weekend may work. Worried that your Rashomon-style retelling of King Lear, only in present tense, second person, and set in the far future isn’t going to work? Write that thing! Don’t get bogged down wondering if your writing is good or your are doing it right or even if the story is salable. Or readable. The bully is in the box, remember, and you don’t worry about the quality of what you’re writing anymore. 

Which brings me back to the beginning, where I’m working on a new book right now. It’s drek, probably, but I don’t mind. My bully is in the box, and I’m not worried about it because this is a first draft, and our one job for a first draft is to get a story on the page. We can worry about the details later. That’s what December is for!

Campbell-winning author Mur Lafferty is a freelance writer, editor, and podcaster whose life consists of spinning plates and hoping they don’t fall. Her latest books are Six Wakes and I Should Be Writing, and she co-edits Escape Pod magazine. In the last few years, she has lost the Hugo Award and been inducted into the Podcaster Hall of Fame. She lives in Durham, NC, with her husband and daughter.

Author Photo by JR Blackwell.

Top image licensed under Creative Commons from Monica Müller on Flickr.