Member-only story
NaNoWriMo: Writing 50,000 Words in 30 Days
Draft your book. In a month.
I’d been contemplating taking part in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for years before finally giving it a shot for the first time in November 2021.
I had many doubts. The biggest one: where do I find the time? I was concerned before I even started writing my book. We all have things we must do and want to do during the day. But then, I thought, this year is as good as any other year. I won’t miraculously have more time next year…so I should instead give it a go now.
On average, writing 50,000 words in November equates to 1,667 words every day. Tracking your progress happens on NaNoWriMo’s platform, where you log an entry of your word count each day. Producing 1,667 words besides having a full-time job and life responsibilities required a priority shift because there is no perfect time to start writing.
I didn’t have time. I made time.
My process
My goal
Even though NaNoWriMo was created to write fiction. But I decided I write a non-fiction design book: Things I wish I knew before starting in UX product design (tentative title). It’s a tool to kickstart your design career and guide any designer through career challenges with many stories, examples, and a work booklet. It’s essentially an extension of my business.
Planning phase
It got real when I signed up in September. It was the time when I started brainstorming about ideas, what I wanted to include in the book. I looked at the market to see what other people produced, but I intentionally excluded design books. I wanted this to be me, and I didn’t want the book to be influenced by different design books. However, I read guides, articles, books directed to junior software engineers and business analysts. I also attended a couple of free seminars on how to write a book, self-publish and do marketing, what kind of cover image works, etc. By the end of October, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to write about with a clear table of content, sections, subsections, headings, quotes.
