Guess what today's topic is?

It's November, guys. You know we're gonna talk about NaNo.

Unless you don't know what that is...

Okay, we'll start with a brief explanation. NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month is an event that takes place every November in which writers and aspiring writers from all around the world set forth to complete a challenge of epic proportions: writing a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. If you'd like to know more about this craziness, visit nanowrimo.org.

Now here's some advice for you current and future NaNo'ers:

• Firstly, get involved in the online and/or local NaNoWriMo community, if you haven't already. You need people who understand what you're doing, and who better than people who are doing the same thing? A lot of people in your life who aren't writers won't really "get" NaNoWriMo. Fellow writers who are attempting the same challenge will be better able to encourage, commiserate, and give advice or feedback. That said, it also helps to tell people who you see frequently in real life about your undertaking so that they can hold you accountable.
• Get some rough ideas figured out before you start writing. Even you "pantsers" (people who write by the seat of their pants rather than having a detailed plan) will benefit from having some basic things figured out, in your head if not on paper. It'll save a lot of time and frustration. If you start out totally directionless, you will end up with random spastic scenes, wooden characters, and cheesy dialogue. This advice comes from previous experience, so... just trust us.
• Do writing prompts to get creative juices flowing. Search Google, Pinterest, the NaNoWriMo forums... there are billions of inspiring prompts out there.
• Participate in word wars (in which you write as much as possible in a designated amount of time) and word sprints (in which you write a specified number of words). These help you stay on track and bump up your word count.
• Listen to music while you write. We often go for instrumental tracks since lyrics can be distracting, but it all depends on who you are, the scene you're working on, and your current state of mind. (Katie wrote her most recent words to Porcupine Tree's Deadwing album.) In the same vein, the music you listen to can really affect what comes out on the page. Basically, what we're trying to tell you is that if you're going for a lighter tone, you probably don't want to listen to metal.
• Find a roleplaying thread on the NaNo forums, or roleplay elsewhere. It may sound like a silly or nerdy thing to do, but it can actually be very helpful for character development.
• Take breaks to walk around, eat, and just do other things. You don't want to feel like you've been sucked into a spinning vortex of words.
• Let go of any perfectionist tendencies you might have. It's a first draft. It's gonna suck, and that's okay. Wait with the editing, and don't get so worked up about writing something awesome that you never write anything because it won't be good enough. Once it exists, you can mold it, shape it, fix it. If you never write that crappy first draft, you'll never have anything to improve on.
• Just keep writing! Don't get hung up on a scene with which you're having trouble. If you need to, skip ahead to a different scene. You can write your novel forwards backwards, upside-down - do whatever works for you. Just don't give up, even if you get so far behind on your word count that you have no hope of catching up. The real point of NaNoWriMo isn't reaching 50K, it's writing. So grab your laptop or college-ruled notebook or typewriter or other writing tool of choice and get cracking.
• Since you don't want all that hard work to be for nothing, please, please, back up your novel. E-mail it to yourself, upload it to the cloud, put it on a flashdrive - whatever works for you. Sarah was really glad she did this last year, because her computer went screwy halfway through the month.
• And finally, if you're having trouble writing your novel, go and write a blog post giving advice to other people on how to write theirs. *laughs nervously and hides*

Happy NaNo-ing!