Boosting Writing Productivity for NaNoWriMo: Avoid Falling Down the Research Rabbit Hole

NaNoWriMo is all about getting words on the page. In today's quick "betweeniesode" we're talking about how to avoid the distractions of research and revisions.

Join award-winning fantasy author Megan Haskell and USA Today bestselling mystery thriller author Greta Boris as we unveil tried-and-true strategies to stay focused on your word count and keep your story on a roll.

Tip 1: Mark sections that need additional research detail and come back later.

Tip 2: Use comments to note consistency issues or new ideas to be worked into earlier chapters rather than revising in the moment.

Get ready to boost your productivity, and keep that story rolling.

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Greta Boris:
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Megan Haskell:
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone and welcome to the author wheel
betweenesode number four.
I'm award winning fantasyauthor Megan Haskell.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
And I'm USA Today best selling mystery thriller
author Greta Boris, and togetherwe are the author wheel.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
So today's tips are all about staying focused on
your word count.
Nano-rymo is all about wordcount.
That is the whole entire point.
So that means you have to bereally careful not to fall down
the research or revision rabbithole.
If you find yourself going offonto the interwebs to do all

(00:40):
kinds of research on aparticular topic, you're not
writing words, and that's thepoint.
So we're going to help youavoid the rabbit holes today.
So our first tip is somethingthat I do all the time.
So, especially since I've beendoing these early morning

(01:01):
writing sessions before the restof my house wakes up, I have a
very limited amount of time.
I usually have about maybe 30minutes to actually write before
the house wakes up, so I don'twant to spend any time
researching, even thoughresearch is probably one of my
favorite aspects of writing.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, I love it too.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
I just can't take the time to do it.
So what I have been doing is, asI go along, I come across a
topic or something that I don'tknow, whether it's a character
name that I haven't chosen yet,or whether it's some sort of
geography thing that I need tolook up about Laguna Beach,
since my current book is set inLaguna Beach, or whether it's

(01:42):
the specific myth around the Godthat I'm using and I want to
clarify detail.
I have to avoid that when I haveonly 30 minutes to actually
write and so to do that, Iactually put a note in the
manuscript that says insertcharacter name and I mark that
with a bracket XXX insertcharacter name.

(02:05):
All in caps, usually XXX, closebracket.
That way when I'm done writingthe entire book, I can go back
and I can find those things thatI skipped past on the first
draft.
So if I'm trying to just getwords on the page, it's so much
easier to just note it and comeback to it than it is to pause

(02:29):
right there, because otherwiseyou get stuck in these loops
where you never actually makeforward progress anymore.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, and I do it even quicker than you.
I don't bother with thebrackets, I just put XXX, and
sometimes, because the longeryour series gets, the more names
of characters you'll have, thatyou're like oh, and book two, I
had a character.
They would be a perfectcharacter for this, but for the
life of me I can't remembertheir name.

(02:59):
Or I remember their name but Ican't remember if I spell it
with an E at the end or if Ispell it with.
How do I spell it?
Or whatever.
So I'll just write either nameXX or I'll write my best guess
at XX, or something like that.
So I use it for that.
I use it for timelines too,because those timelines can

(03:23):
really take a lot of not takeyou a lot out of your writing
time to figure out how many.
You know they do something onthis day and then on a future
day they need to go do somethingelse.
Well, should that future day bea Saturday, a Sunday, a Monday?
Does it really matter?

(03:43):
You know all those kinds ofdecisions, at some point you
need to make them and at somepoint need to know, but it may
not be just then.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Right.
So the interestingly, the otherthing that I do mostly with
regard to timelines although Ihave used it in other situations
can be a character, if I canguess the name.
But rather than doing the XX,if I can, if I have a pretty
good guess or I think I'm right,but I'm just not sure, I just
want to double check it, or ifthe note is a lot longer than

(04:17):
just a few words, I leave myselfa comment.
So I write in Scrivener, butyou could do it, obviously in
Word or anything else too.
You know too, but you justhighlight the name, for example,
and then in the comments youset up a comment.
You say double check this name.
I think I spelled it differentlyin book two or whatever.

(04:38):
Whatever your question is thatway.
You're not looking it up now,so you're not breaking away from
writing the words, getting thewords on the page, but you have
a nice easy reference revisionlist once you're ready to go
back and edit.
So you already know the thingsthat you have to question, so
you can make sure yourconsistency stays true from book

(04:59):
to book to book or whatever foryour timeline.
So that really helps a lot too.
So then I just make sure in theediting stage that I clear out
all those comments as I go andthat way I know.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Right, and the other thing that we talked about last
week, which is getting in theflow.
This will help you not breakthe flow.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
So along the same line, tip number two this
happens to me all the time.
You're writing along, you'renow in chapter 35 or whatever
and you get this phenomenallygood idea that you did not have
in the beginning of the book andall of a sudden, you know,
those little subconsciousthreads you've laid down come

(05:45):
together and you're like, oh mygosh, this is so amazing.
Or, like me yesterday, I'malmost really at the end of my
book and I just realized I wasin the month of June and it
would be so cool if I made itJune gloom and had a lot of fog.
You know atmosphere throughoutthe book, right?
Well, I didn't write that in onthe first draft because I just

(06:07):
thought of it.
So another thing you can do theninstead of getting upset or
worried or trying to go back andrewrite all the chapters that
you know would need this plotpoint to be reflected, you can
just go to some of thosechapters, or even the very

(06:27):
beginning of the book or thefirst place this idea might have
cropped up and at the top ofyour page I just write add
uppercase letters, june gloom,fog, or add put the gun on the
mantle or add whatever.
It is the thing you need toforeshadow.
You can also go in and you cansay delete if you've decided

(06:53):
that you have an extra characterand you really don't need that
person there.
They didn't do anything.
By the end of the book, youstuck a man and boom, they're
gone, you know.
So instead of going back andfeeling like you have to fix
things now, just go makeyourself a note, particularly on
the chapters that will beaffected, and then just keep

(07:14):
writing.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
I mean, that's ultimately what it comes down to
, right.
It's just keep writing.
So don't let yourself go backand edit the first three
chapters 1200 times, becauseyou're gonna be rewriting the
same 10,000 words over and, overand over again, and that's not
the point of Nano.
So, so, nano, you're trying towrite 50,000 words in the month,

(07:41):
so get those words on the page.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
That's right.
Keep your story rolling.