Lately, I've been thinking of binge writing--the kind of writing where you forgo everything, sit down at the computer, and just type madly. This past weekend, I had such an experience doing The 3-Day Novel Contest (unofficially, since I did not want to throw away fifty bucks for the entrance fee). It reminded me a lot about my first year doing Nanowrimo: I found out about the contest not long before it was going to start (for Nano, it was in the middle of October; for the 3-Day thing, it was one day before), I had no idea what I was going to write since I didn't do any planning, and I did not know how I was going to pace myself.
You cannot control when you discover something like Nano--whether it be one day or eleven months beforehand. But you can control the planning and pacing--and if you do that, binge writing doesn't have to be such a chore. You might even be able to have a life while binge writing as well.
I am a big fan of planning. Knowing what I will write next eases the writing process. I don't have to sit in front of a blank monitor wondering what is coming next or even worrying if I still have any ideas left in my rapidly frying brain. Another big variable that I try to nail down is pacing and time management. If I carve out time in the morning right after I wake up and some time right before I go to bed to write, I won't have to worry so much about running out of time. Of course, it helps too if I write whenever I find a spare moment in the rest of the day.
I'll just throw this question out to everyone. What sort of strategies do you use to cope with having to write a mind-boggling number of words in such a short period of time? For the newbies: Are you already carving out time in November to do your writing? And for the Nano vets: What tips and suggestions do you have for successfully binge writing?
