[NaNoWrimo] The obligatory NaNoWrimo First Day post…

So with NaNoWrimo upon us, now what?
Well, a couple of things:
First: Back yer stuff up. USB Stick, Dropbox, iCloud, Google Docs, some sort of easy to use cloud and or physical back up that you can easily carry around with you. Emphasis on easy and portable because you don’t want your gear to crash on you loose all your work. This also means going into the word document preferences and adjusting your auto save to every three minutes or less and making sure to create a backup of the document as well. Triple redundancy is yer friend.
Second: Word War Buddy. Find one. Yes, that means step 3.
Step 3: Go to your region‘s bulletin board and find a local Write In. Meet people. Be friendly. Ask someone if they will poke you every so often so you won’t fall behind. The comments from people who have never gone to one and suddenly find their writing output going through the roof is always nice to hear. Sure, this draft is going to suck but it’s 50k words, you can edit in January.
Four: Why? Because NaNoWrimo is fun exercise to rub your sticks of creativity together and see what it’s like if you decide to do this writing thing full time.
Five: Edit in January. Seriously. Just put it on the back burner and worry about the holidays then come back to it.
Six: If you find M$ Word is too expensive try Scrivener (Mac/PC) or Storyist. They both may have a learning curve but it’s better than having to go through several folders trying to find that little tid bit you were looking for.
Seven: Find a writing group. Check Meetup.com