[Research]

“Write everything, everything that comes to mind, even if it's just pieces of different scenes. You can finish them later. You can even write, in brackets, [in this scene, Main Character has a food fight in the cafeteria with Childhood Foe, involving some applesauce in the eye] if you don't feel like actually writing out that scene. Then keep going as if you had written it. It helps.” —Veronica Ruth

This is great advice for anyone writing a first draft, but especially for anyone participating in NaNoWriMo. In fact, it’s the only way to reach your word count each day. Use brackets for scenes when you’re not sure of the details. Use brackets to help separate your research time from your writing time. It’s too easy to be writing along and decide you need to find out what particular native wildflowers bloom in Minnesota in the spring and get sucked into a never-ending quest for the ‘right’ answer. Just put [flower] in brackets and keep on writing. When your scheduled research time comes around, you can search for '[' in your MS, and find everything you need more information on.

Just. Keep. Writing.