For those of you who don’t know what NaNoWriMo means (National Novel Writing Month) you don’t need to worry about any of this. Continue happily on with your sane lives. But for any of you out there who have accepted the challenge of writing a novel of 50,000 words in 30 days I have compiled some advice from well known authors to help (and by ‘help’ I mean, ‘not help at all and marginally harm by distracting’) you through your odyssey.
The road to hell is paved with adverbs.
― Stephen King
Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.
― Louis L’Amour
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
― W. Somerset Maugham
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
― Jack London
This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It’s that easy, and that hard.
― Neil Gaiman
Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.
― Natalie Goldberg
Nothing’s a better cure for writer’s block than to eat ice cream right out of the carton.
― Don Roff
In writing, you must kill all your darlings.
― William Faulkner
And finally:
Beware of advice—even this.
― Carl Sandburg
So, to those of you making the attempt I wish you all the best!