Good Tools For Your NaNoWriMo Rewrite

nanowrimo – day 7 goal (Photo credit: paloetic)

 

By now, anyone who has been participating in the National Novel Writing Month has either completed their novel, completed enough of it to make their 50,000 word count, or had made an excellent effort in completing it.

 

For some, like me, we have gone through a roller coaster of feelings about our novels, usually ranging from, “Wow, what a load of crap,” (often with varying amounts of exclamations points), to “My God, this is… craptacular!” (again with varying amounts of exclamation points).

 

So, now that your done and you spend the next four weeks either lost in a book that isn’t written by you, or lost in World of Warcraft, or even finishing your November novel, you have probably decided, like me, that maybe your novel isn’t a gigantic abyss that seeks only to consume what is left of your soul, what do you do when you decide to revise, edit and rewrite your novel.

 

Honestly, I can’t tell you how to do that.  No, really, I can’t.  But I can at least tell you what I keep on hand when I try to revise my novels.

 

 

First and foremost, I make sure that I have a copy of my novel on hand.  The first year I did this, I actually printed out a hard copy of my novel which I never put into a binder.  I dreaded tripping while carrying that.  But it gave me a copy of my work that I could take somewhere away from my computer and reread and mark up.  It also gave me a copy that I could then show to someone else for them to read and critique… if I ever would let my novel be seen by anyone before I thought I was ready.

 

Nook and Kindle (Photo credit: evilgenius)

 

Nowadays, I have gone digital.  The software that I wrote all my NaNoWriMo projects on will export to PDF format, as will most word processing packages.  From there, it was a quick reader conversion in Calibre and then sideloading onto my Nook.  I’m guessing most other readers will also work this way as well.  I prefer the Nook because I can highlight and add notes like I would a hard copy.  I also went with the Nook because for an electronic purchase of that nature, I wanted to actually see the item I was thinking of buying.  At the time, Kindle was only available through Amazon.  I am not one to buy sight unseen… not at that price.

 

I will also keep a pad and pens around as well, just in case I need to make notes more extensive than the Nook can handle.  Again, it is a matter of taste, but I prefer Pilot Precise V5 rolling ball pens.  When I was working with my hard copy, I would also keep on hand some post it tabs which allowed me to mark pages I made notes on to make it easier to refer back to them.

From there, I just tried to approach my book like any other books, with fresh eyes.  It’s one of the reasons why I will not read it at my computer, since it serves as a reminder that it is something that I wrote.  If I am away from my computer, I have some distance from what I wrote, even if it is right in front of me.  Plus I can read through it anywhere at that point, in bed, during a lunch break, while I’m waiting for something I really should not have to wait for.

However, since this is only the first of December, right now I am more apt to get lost in World of Warcraft trying out the new monk class, or my usual favorite, the hunter.

 

Related articles

• NaNoWriMo Day 30 – FINISHED!!!!!! (aelizabethwest.wordpress.com)
• NaNoWriMo Wordle (rebeccamckeownwrites.com)
• Editing your NaNoWriMo novel THREE BITE SIZE GUIDES TO EDITING AND REVISING THE FIRST DRAFT part 1 (bridgetwhelan.com)
• NaNoWriMo Novel is Done! (rachelleharp.com)
• After NaNoWrimo – Editing Part 1 (the-view-outside.com)