13 Top Tips from a NaNoWriMo Winner

Last updated on 24 June 2025

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Attention: NaNoWriMo shut down in 2025. Char over at The Plottery has a succinct blog post about the closure and what happened. I encourage you to read it. You can still, of course, do your own writing challenge like NaNo once was, and I think this post will still be helpful for you.

Ready to become a NaNoWriMo winner?

National Novel Writing Month is nearly upon us! Are you ready to totally conquer your novel this November? If you’re prepping for the month of writing, then you are in the right place! In this post, we’re taking a look at some of the top tips for being a NaNoWriMo winner from a NaNoWriMo winner.

What is NaNoWriMo?

If you’re unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every November, people all around the world take up the opportunity to kick start the novel they’ve always wanted to write.

What started in America has now expanded and writers all over the world are taking part. There are reps in many countries and cities who put together write-a-thons in cafes and libraries and support the writers in their regions. It’s a lot of fun and a really great challenge.

What are the NaNoWriMo rules?

The goal is to write 50,000 over the course of 30 days (about 1,667 words per day), as the first draft of a novel. Other than that, there really are no rules! You ‘win’ simply by completing your 50,000 words in 30 days.

It’s a personal challenge, so you set yourself your own goals and what you want to achieve before you start. You can use the NaNoWriMo community to help encourage you and support you as you go, and make use of the epic tips for becoming a NaNoWriMo winner both on writers’ blogs (like this one!) and also on the NaNoWriMo website itself.

On the website, you can add in your book and update your word count every day to see how you’re tracking. You can also earn badges, connect with our writers, buy merchandise and read some epic booster posts from authors.

13 top tips for becoming a NaNoWriMo winner

Plan ahead
Outline before you start
Don’t read back
Don’t edit too much
Join your support teams
Set aside time to write
Set aside a place to write
Create a writing playlist
Try a concentration app
Turn off your notification
Learn as you go
Have resources on hand
Don’t focus on winning

Plan ahead

Spend October or the few weeks leading up to November planning your novel. You don’t have to have it all sorted and sussed out on November 1st, but having a plan going into the month of writing is going to help you so much.

Plan your characters and what they look like, what their personalities are like, what their hopes and dreams are. Think about your protagonists and your antagonists. Why are they at odds?

Loosely plot your plot. It doesn’t have to be exact, as I know that things can change and you might take it in a different direction, but start with some sense of direction and see where it takes you.

Look at the world you’re creating if it’s a new world. Suss out the lore and the history before you dive in. What is the terrain look like? Draw a rough map to help you visualise as you write your way to NaNoWriMo winner status.

Outline before you start

That plot that you loosely draft before? Spread it before you and outline your book. What needs to happen for person A to meet B? ARe there big events or plot points that need to be written? Where in the story will they come?

Just like starting with a plan, having an outline of exactly what you’re going to write is going to help you keep ahead of your word count goals each day.

Don’t read back

The first time I took part in NaNoWriMo I spent too long going back and re-reading what I had written. Rooky error! The goal is not to write the perfect first draft. The goal is to have a draft to which to go back to at the end of the month. This means that we need to spend as little time possible on reading back and seeing what we’re already written. Tempting as it may be to check out what we’ve done.

Don’t edit too much

Or at all! Changing sentences you’re working on, sure, but don’t get bogged down by spelling or grammar at this stage. The main idea is to get the words on the page so you have something to work with.

“You can’t edit a blank page.” – Jodi Picoult

It’s true. Better you have 1,667 misspelt words on the page than none. 1,667 misspelt words mean you have something to edit.

Join your support teams

Writing can be a solitary activity, but there are plenty of people out there who are doing what you’re doing. Use the NaNoWriMo website to join support groups in your area, go to meets if you can. It’s a real joy to be able to be creating alongside others who have either been doing NaNoWriMo for years or who are new and can ask questions.

Having a support team, whether online or in-person, also allows that space for asking questions, getting opinions, talking through plot holes and drinking a lot of coffee.

Set aside time to write

Choose a time of the time that works for you. whether that be before your day job in the morning, over your lunch break, or it’s in the evening when the kids have gone to bed. Set aside a big chunk of time (say an hour) to just write. If you can write throughout the day, dipping in and out, even better! But if you need a set time, set that time. And not stray from it.

Set aside a place to write

Having a specific place that you sit down and write for the month will help you get into the mindset of writing. When I did NaNoWriMo I used to sit on my bed with my computer. It wasn’t great for posture, but it meant that whenever I had my laptop on my lap in bed, I was writing.

While I don’t recommend your bed being the place you write, it could be a certain space your kitchen bench or dining room table. Perhaps it’s your work desk or your favourite chair. Maybe it’s at the workbench in the garage or on the floor on a cushion in the spare room.

The other place I spent a lot of time writing was in a coffee shop (though if you’re doing that every day it’ll get pricey!). There were a few of us who started a wee writing club after work for the duration of the month, and we just met up once a week to write. That worked really well.

All of us harbor secret hopes that a magnificent novel will tumble out of the sky and appear on our screens, but almost universally, writing is hard, slow, and totally unglamorous. So why finish what you’ve started? Because in two weeks, when you are done, you will be grateful for the experience. Also, you will have learned a lot about writing and humanness and the inestimable value of tilting at windmills. – John Green, The Fault in our Stars

Create a writing playlist

If you like writing with music in the background, create a playlist in your prep time before November so that you’re in the writing mindset (like where you’re writing and at what time you’re writing) when you push play.

Much like having a workout playlist or a playlist for studying for exams, having a writing playlist helps you hone in on what you’re doing and places your mind in that writing zone.

Try a concentration app

Need a bit more accountability while you’re writing? Why not try a concentration app? There are tons of apps out there that help you focus. A favourite one of mine is Forest App. When you want to stay focused, you plant a tree on the app. The tree grows while you’re working, but if you leave the app halfway through the growing, your tree withers and die. It’s intense, and it works.

Turn off your notifications

Turn off your phone, put it in another room, turn your notifications on silent. Move it away from you. Unless you’re growing a tree. We need to eliminate as many distractions as possible so we can get typing.

The greatest thing about writing is that it’s just you and the page. The most horrifying thing about writing is that it’s just you and the page. – Diana Gabaldon, Outlander

Learn as you go

Be prepared to learn as you go. You won’t know the best way to structure a sentence, keep track of your characters’ whereabouts, whether you’ve already talked about a certain plot point, or if you described something differently before right at the beginning. You won’t know whether you work better on the kitchen bench or on the floor.

You might not even know if simply writing in Word or Google Sheets is your jam … but if you’re willing to learn these things about yourself and your writing habits as you go, you’ll be fine.

Have resources on hand

We’ve talked about not having distractions around and having good practices on hand to help you out, but sometimes you need to have a quick lookup of something, or you need a resource to help you get over this particular hurdle.

Having resources on hand such as your own plot outline and overview, as well as online resources like these 240+ Writing Resources for NaNoWriMo can really help you out. Find a few sites in your planning week that you can pull out easily at any time, and save them into a bookmarks folder on your computer or save a list somewhere.

You don’t have to believe you can; you just have to do it. – Holly Black, How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

Don’t focus on winning

This article is to help you become a NaNoWriMo winner, it is, but don’t focus too much on ‘winning’. Focus on your word count, your 1,667 words a day, focus on telling the story that’s been on your heart for so long.

Once your focus is clear and your goal is tangible, everything else will fall into place.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? What’s your book about? Tell me in the comments!