Making the most out of NaNoWriMo on this Presidential Election Day

Vote (Photo credit: Vaguely Artistic)

Today is Election Day here in the USA. If you’re American, make sure you get your tushy out there and vote!

Of course, it’s also still NaNoWriMo. Since a Presidential election only comes around once every four years, it’s sort of a novelty for it to be Election Day while we’re all novelling away so I thought I’d compile a a few tips for using Election Day to help you with your NaNoWriMo challenge.

• People watch your fellow voters. You see all sorts of interesting characters at the polls, don’t you? From the volunteers to people fresh from work, there’s a wide range of personalities in your local polling place today. While waiting to cast your vote, pay attention to the people around you with a special eye to which of them might be great inspiration for characters in your novel. This way, doing your civic duty won’t be writing time wasted.
• Feeling particularly passionate or enraged about politics? Let your characters debate current events! This can be a valuable tool for character development. Take a moment to think about your characters and where they’d fall on various issues. Then take two characters on opposite sides of an issue and let them at each other. You’ll not only learn a lot about your characters and how they think, you’ll find that a good argument is a great way to increase your word count. As an added bonus, you may find yourself with a new perspective on the issues from having to play devil’s advocate and maybe even figure out the theme of your novel with this exercise.
• Write your way through the nighttime election coverage. Many of us like to stay up and see who won the election but the evening news coverage can often be boring as they pad their material and talk about nothing until the poll results start trickling in. Instead of glazing out in front of the tube, use the time between interesting parts as little mini-word sprints and use that time to get some writing done.