It’s FOUR DAYS till the madness starts! AAHHHH CAN YOU FEEL IT? Can you feel the excitement? Is your imagination on overdrive? Mine is, I just need to catch my imagination and make sure I get all the ideas down!

So I thought I’d share some tips in preparing for the noveling month I’ve picked up from the past four years I’ve been doing this crazy thing:

  • Choose your writing software. I’m a geek, I admit it, and this is one of the things I make sure I figure out first. I make sure to find the best writing software for me, as it’s really going to matter for me during the month. Right now I’m toying with Scrivener but I have the full version of Storymill, so it’s kind of a problem. Heh. Let’s see which I like better.
  • Arm yourself with writing tools. Other than the software, make sure you have the writing tools you feel most comfortable to use. If you have a favorite pen, stock on it now! If you need a special notebook to gather thoughts, make sure you have it close at hand every time so if an idea hits you, you get to write it down! A cellphone works well too. And some tissue and random scraps of paper — just make sure you don’t lose it. :D
  • Get plenty of rest. I know you’d probably like to stay up late to plan for your novel, but trust me, there’s more time where you’d be actually writing than sleeping on November. So make sure you get the proper rest this week. :)
  • Stock up on food and drinks. Make sure you have plenty of nutritious food and drinks on hand so your health won’t suffer for November. Also, make sure you have special treats you can give yourself so that when you reach a certain word count, you can reward yourself.
  • Find a writing schedule. It can be early mornings, in the evenings, or during breaks in school or at work — find the writing time where you can focus as much as possible (of course, don’t forget to join the word wars, as this will really boost up your word count).
  • Get a support group. Some of you may like writing a novel alone, but a support group does wonders. It can be just your readers on your blog, or friends from work or school, or your fellow PinoyWrimos. If there’s anyone who understands the pain you’re going through in November, it’s going to be your fellow Wrimos. They’ll also make sure you reach your goal by prodding you and encouraging you and daring you and threatening you with all sorts of things possible. Seriously.
  • Finally, Relax. Don’t get too stressed about how you’d write your novel. Bury your internal editor and allow yourself to just write. Don’t worry about how you wrote it, if some of the facts aren’t true just yet, or if you are having difficulty naming some of the places (I named a coffee shop in my 2007 novel “The Coffee Shop Yet to be Named”) or people — just write. You can worry about editing later. You’re not supposed to come up with an shiny masterpiece, you can transform your first draft into that later, what’s important is just write.

Right now I’m really supposed to be planning my novel, so I guess I should go back to that. What other tips can you share to others? Post them here!