4 Writing Lessons That NaNo 2007 Taught Me  

NaNoWriMo has ended. You find yourself with a 50,000 words manuscript, or in the worst case, with some thousand words about a good idea you had in late October. Now what ? Should you go edit and rewrite like mad ? Most NaNoWriMo veterans say no. For my part, I think it's time to sum up the good writing lessons I've learnt during this month !

1. You don't have to write in a linear way
As you may know it, I've used SciTE text folding abilities to write my novel. I was able to outline the scenes, and then drill down into the detailed view to write. If I was stuck on a scene, I jumped on a more promising one. If I wanted to be lazy, I added a intermediate scene between two old ones. I don't know why, but I had previously an internal barrier for this way of writing ! If you are like I was before Nano 2007, give non linear writing a try ! It may surprise you.

2. If you wrote it, then it's somewhat good
My inner editor never sleeps, even in NaNoWriMo mode. I never allow myself to write nonsense. And if I made this mistake the evening before, I scrap everyting and rewrite the day after. If you're like me, do yourself a favor : when you come back to your manuscript in December/January, don't outright toss it ! Try to remember why you wrote it in the first place. Try to remember how funny it sounded, how much time you spent micro-editing scene #45 to convey some obscure plot point... There's good in anything you do. Because... well, you did it.

3. Go for limited edits
The worst nightmare of post-NaNoWriMo times is the editing/rewriting phase (especially for me). You write something. You rewrite it. And re-rewrite it. And three years later, you're still stuck mid-novel, trying to find your way in version 5.21.0.2 of your manuscript.
Would things be easier if you noted down each edit to make... so you'd have only a limited number of items to fix ?
I did that when I was writing my NaNo, and I now have a 30 bullets points list of things to fix. Will my novel be perfect when I'll make all these edits ? Of course not. But it will be January 2008. Not January 2015.

4. One file for everything
I had planned a multi-file organisation for my NaNo 2007, but I found out quickly that it was a little bit counterproductive. Think about full text search and full text folding for everything, ranging from novel paragraphs to editing notes. You don't have to bother with chapter cuts or multiple files to search into ("Is my killing scene taking place in Nano2007_part4.txt or Nano2007_part5.txt ?"). Or you can call this laziness :)

I hope you can make good use of these tips. If NaNoWriMo 2007 did change your way to write, don't forget to share your experiences or links in the comments !