Encouraging Words from MLs

i just got "pep talk" emails from the Municipal Liaisons from SF and the South Bay. There are tidbits that apply to all of us in some manner, so I thought I'd repost some parts here, with added emphasis by me.

From the South Bay ML:

Finishing up with week one, many of you are well on your way to noveling greatness with the hundreds or thousands of words you’ve written. Some of you may have already crossed the 10,000 mark which is really awesome.

For those of you who are feeling behind, don’t despair. It's not unusual to get a slow start as you throw your internal editor to the curb, or have life throw a few objects in the way.

The important thing is to keep writing.

If you find yourself hating your current story or feeling that a particular plot thread has completely unraveled, then I would suggest that you insert a random plot ninja, as in “On the way to Bhangra class, Cliff Brooks was attacked by gnomes and mercilessly beaten to death…” which can then completely take your story down a different path.

The important thing is to keep writing.

Remember that coherent plot lines aren’t a requirement and besides, that’s what NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month) was created. You can fix that pesky plot later.

The important thing is to keep writing.

From the SF ML:

We're almost through with week one of NaNoWriMo 2005, and by now you're hundreds or thousands of words into your 2005 Nano novel. A couple of you are tens of thousands of words along, and that is great.

For those of you who aren't, don't despair. It's not unusual to get a slow start as you kick your internal editor to the door for the 30 days that are NaNoWriMo. It gets easier as you go along. You should find that if you put two hours a day into it, you'll get into the groove. And you may surprise yourself.

I can offer a bit of advice for your wordcount preservation. If you get stuck and absolutely can't go on with your story line, you can start over, but don't delete what you've already written. Remember that cohesion and coherence aren't requirements of NaNoWriMo. Just put a line across your document and start over. You can go back later and wrap it into your story--maybe a character finds an old manuscript he was writing and reads it over. Or just leave the story fragment there. It's okay.