I wrote a near 130K novel in 60 days from November 1st to December 30th. While it was a wild adventure and a wonderful flurry of words, I’m so happy I documented my progress day by day and took notice of what worked and what didn’t.
It was a great experience and I would definitely love to do it again (once the book hangover wears off!)
Timers
What Worked: When I started in November, I set out to find out why November is always such a good writing month and what makes it feel so magical to me. I started documenting my time, and for that, I used timers. Little bits of time, ranging from 5 to 30 minutes worked wonders. I could see how long it took me to write as many words as I needed for the day and could account for that time. I could easily tally up my writing minutes for the day and find out how long it took me to reach a goal.
What Didn’t Work: Stopwatch. The few times I used a stopwatch, usually for long periods of time during writing meeting groups, I did not like it. Something about the timer counting down pushed me to write faster. The stopwatch, I forgot about for 2 days (yes, the stopwatch on Apple Watch can run for quite a while in the background).
Verdict: I will definitely keep using timers while writing, but not a stopwatch.
Outline
What Worked: I wrote an outline before November started. The last time I wrote an outline was around 2012 or 2013 and I struggled to follow it. This is the first project I’ve outlined all the way through and didn’t go too far off the outline. The outline kept me accountable and helped me when I was interested in adding or changing things.
What didn’t Work: My outline was loose (It works better for me that way), but not written in the best order. I was pulling plot points from halfway through the outline into the first few chapters because it made sense to put it there. The plot points were not fleshed out enough in the outline, so when it got closer to the time to consult it at the end, I had to do a lot of fudgery to make sure the plot points worked and in my mind certain scenes were too long or too rushed. Easily fixable in the next drafts, but in some places the outline felt too rigid.
Verdict: I will keep using outlines, and will outline projects before I start them, especially since my next few projects (if timing works out) will be a bit more complicated.
Ulysses
What Worked: I’ve been using Ulysses for over 3 years now. I really enjoy the program (and the app) now that I’ve created a routine. I enjoy that I can create projects (a new feature I used for this novel which REALLY helped), I enjoy that I can organize a group and page however I want. I started using a page per day during NaNoWriMo 2020 and it worked really well to keep myself accountable and not get freaked out by such a large number and the WHOLE document in one place. I kept it up for the last few years and it’s nice to start with a blank page every day.
What Didn’t Work: I write a lot on my phone, and while this isn’t a bad thing, the new feature in Ulysses where it autocorrects to what it thinks you’re wanting to write was annoying as hell. The program struggles between to and so a lot, and it and to for some reason. Autocorrect would pick the stupidest replacements, even changing my main character’s name to Sandwich once. It did not help my word count, especially as I was speeding toward the end and yelling at my phone (and occasionally the computer) “NOT THAT ONE! UGH!” and going back to edit.
Verdict: Despite the obvious autocorrect issues, I like Ulysses. It’s been a great writing tool for quite a while. While I don’t agree with all the updates (looking at you predictive text), I will continue to use it for multiple projects and posts, and I am going to attempt to start a blank page every day in the next projects I’m working on this year.
Notebook with Daily Tally and Brief Summary of Writing Day
What Worked: I liked handwriting my tally down and breaking it down into minutes. It was nice to write about how writing went that day and what I wanted get done, did get done, or didn’t get done. It was nice to decompress after writing and assess patterns in my daily routine of where I could improve or where I could pull back.
What Didn’t Work: A lot of the days, I would finish my daily quota right before I fell asleep in bed and wouldn’t write in the notebook until a day or two (or 15) later. December was notorious for this, and so a lot of the little notes about how writing went weren’t entirely genuine, but the daily tallys were.
Verdict: I think I will continue this idea for big projects, like novels and maybe edits when I get there, but not for every project I write. It was fun to use a notebook and print out my cover to make the notebook fancy, but I doubt I’ll do it for every project.
60 days is the fastest I’ve ever written a first draft of a novel. I think the tools helped, but I also think if I had only had a pen and paper and the drive to tell a story, I would have still been able to write a successful story, it just would have taken me longer.
A writer’s tools can help or hinder, but I truly believe the best tool a writer can have is the determination and motivation to continue the work even when it gets hard and push through to the end.