Once you’ve considered the pros and cons of blogging your NaNoWriMo novel – or, anything, really – and have decided to go for it, how do you tie all the chapters or related posts together on the blog? Building a table of contents is a bit tedious, and requires extensive cross-linking and updates to be really reader-friendly.
If you use self-hosted WordPress, you’re in luck. The Display Posts Shortcode plug-in by Bill Ericsson is ideal for that and more! The following list of links uses a shortcode with parameters for the tags “nanowrimo” and “nanowrimo2017” and specifies that the list should include excerpts, if defined in the posts.
See the documentation for the Display Posts Shortcode plug-in for all the supported parameters; this plug-in is very easy-to-use, but powerful and flexible. Once you set up the shortcode for your table of contents, all you need to do is copy it to all the posts where you want it to appear. The list of links will be updated as you post, provided the criteria you establish in the shortcode parameters is matched.
Love the purple. How long have i been asleep?
Since the first post. 🙂 Thanks!
Since September 11, Rasheed. That’s when I started fresh with this blog, and closed the old one ( https://jahangiri.us/2013 ) I left a note, there, as my last post, with directions to this blog. Not sure how many have followed the breadcrumbs, yet.
I have “won” NaNoWriMo several times. My problem is that I don’t do anything with the manuscript. It languishes in my computer. Well, wait, that isn’t quite true. I tried to rewrite something last year as another NaNoWriMo attempt, but after November 8, I couldn’t bear to go back to the manuscript. It took place in a United States that had suffered through a second Civil War later in our century. It was suddenly too real.
I set my first in the aftermath of 9/11. Just two months afterwards, in 2001. I actually did finish it, but I don’t know that I could even find the manuscript now or bear to read it. I get it.
No law says you HAVE to, either. You can ritually BURN it on December 1, if that’s what makes you feel good. Sometimes, there’s stuff in there that needs to get out. Sometimes, it gets out, and doesn’t need to go anywhere, ever again. 🙂 I’d hang onto that manuscript and read it again in a year or two. See if you feel the same way about it with a little time and distance.
I definitely won’t blog my #NaNoWriMo. There’s enough pressure as it is to write 50,000 words. Can’t add the pressure of blogging it. I have been using the app Scrivener recently to write my stories. I think it’ll really come in handy for the challenge.
Whatever you do, do NOTHING to add to the “pressure” or “stress” surrounding NaNoWriMo. The whole point is to break free of that and unleash your creativity. ENJOY IT. 🙂 Doctor’s orders.
Not for me this time for sure. But very interesting pointers here, Holly.
Mine:
https://natashamusing.com/2017/10/beyond-fears-lies-fun-writebravely-writetribeproblogger-mondaymusings/
I need to start writing regularly first. But writing serial blogs is what i have done. Didn’t know how to link them to each other though. Thanks for this post.
I think that readers are more inclined to follow along if you provide them a roadmap to the other posts. We need to remember that new readers may be jumping into the middle of a series – not assume they know where the beginning is, or are going to expend the energy to look.
It is easier to write in serial blogs but sometimes it is difficult to maintain the same tone or flow of things. I however enjoy the task of piecing them together in the process.
See my reply to Sunita (just above this). Maintaining the same tone IS a challenge. Normally, a serialized work is written and edited FIRST, then broken into chunks and scheduled sequentially. IF you blog NaNoWriMo and post as you go, you don’t have that option – you’re letting readers watch the creative process unfold in all its awkward, clumsy, half-edited glory. You want to change something essential about a character halfway through? Readers may get confused, so it’s helpful if you also include notes about your process at the top of the post. This won’t be polished work, and may never become polished work, so readers need to understand that and you owe it to them to explain, somewhere, what you’re up to. Smooth tone and flow are almost always the result of good editing, later. 🙂
I have never attempted to try NaNoWriMo as I get stressed with the numbers I guess but surely want to attempt it once. This post really is a motivation
Definitely do NOT stress out about the numbers.
Try this: don’t look at the word count. DO write every chance you get. Learn to write in a notebook on the train or something. Write WHILE watching TV. Write in the kitchen. Write in the bathroom! (Sometimes it’s the only room in the house where you can get away for a little peace and quiet, am I right?) Stitch it all together later.
Some of us, trying to lose weight, can look at the scales every day and take it as “just another metric.” Some can’t weigh in more than weekly, or they get so stressed they eat three times as much. Figure out what gives YOU the best shot at hitting 50K words by November 30, and try it. If that doesn’t work out, try a different approach next year (or furtively create your own personal NaNoWriMo in January!! Don’t tell anyone what you’re up to! See if you can write a novel IN SECRET in a month!) Do what works. The original point of NaNoWriMo was just to get people who don’t see themselves as “writers” or who live in paralytic fear of the blank page to outwrite their own inner critics – the word count thing is to FORCE you to write too fast to stop and edit and get stuck in some perfectionistic RUT. That’s all.
That’s a great little plugin! It could work for building an index of posts on a particular category or tag on your blog too, I suppose?
Yes! Read its documentation for all the parameters it supports. Its pretty impressive.
Thanks Holly.. Very useful indeed.. Something I haven’t tried yet..