NaNoWriMo; A challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

Whether you are an ordinary writer simply looking for some witchy writing tips or a chaotic writer who wants to use witchy tips to win NaNoWriMo… you’re in the right place.

NANOWRIMO

When I first heard that unusual word I was 21 and driving a hotel shuttle bus through the deep snows of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Some young guy, probably from Toronto, was excitedly telling me all about it as I dropped him at the Banff Resource Centre to attend a Writers Workshop for Nano.

I remember his enthusiasm immediately inspiring me to start work on a spooky novel idea that I’d been playing in my mind for months, which included an icicle being used as a weapon (that conveniently melted destroying all evidence), and a wailing snowy lake siren hidden in the mountains.

Unfortunately, I didn’t listen to all of his advice around why NaNoWriMo was good and just figured I could smash out a novel in a month on my own.

Boy was I wrong.

I have no idea where that lonely forgotten word document ended up, but it was no-where near the goals or dreams I’d had for it, and I felt like I’d never be a writer because it was all too hard and obviously I was terrible at it.

Fast foward to 2022 and the word NaNoWriMo popped up in my periphery once more and this time, I actually looked into it properly. Thank Goddess I did because by the end of November I had successfully written over 50,000 words of my novel with the help of exactly…

3 discord groups
1 local writers meet up
2 melt downs
1 Tarot deck
1 Stack of note cards
1 jar of rocks
Lot’s of community support (aka peer pressure)
1 bottle of ADHD meds
Weird YouTube background music
1 bottle of oil
Nano Reward Badges
2 amazing podcasts
1 epic spotify playlist
Some very concerning google searches
1 local library
The Nano Resources incl. groups, live interviews & prep 101
1 frazzled husband
2 confused kids
and a bunch of Witchy tools

Now, it’s nearing November 2023 and I am ready to hit the challenge again to complete my manuscript!
Will you join me!?

Now for the Witchy Tips to help you WIN NANO!

Witchy Writing Tip #1

Use correspondances to get you ‘in the writing mood’.

Creative correspondances are your best friend. As my good friend Astrea Taylor says in her book “Inspiring Creativity through Magick” (which is incredible btw), songs, herbs, crystals, colours, times of day, seasons and moods are all examples of creative correspondances that you can use to communicate with the creative spirit and facilitate the flow of inspiration.

During Nano, we need to be able to step into the ‘zone’ every, single, day. Having correspondances that alert Spirit and yourself that it’s write time is a great little writing tip.

As a mother to two young kids (6 & 2), and a partner away 50% of the time, I don’t really have a time of day or a mood that’s consistent for writing. But when I do get my moment I make sure everything is working in my favour to help me get those words down.

Here’s an example from my own writing practice.

Everytime I sit down to write I have;

A hot drink (tea or coffee) and a bottle of water.
A piece of fluorite nearby (for mental focus), which I pick up and hold in times of deep thought and problem solving
A large piece of calcite to aid in the flow of words
And (this is the most important part) I dab a few drops of “Azazel Ritual Oil” from the poisoners apothecary onto my wrists and invoke the spirit of Azazel to guide my words. Why that oil? Well, my main character (MC) for my current work in progress (WIP) is literally Azazel and the smell puts me immediately in the frame of mind for working on this project and getting into my MC’s head.

Side note: I leave my phone in another room and often use lo-fi music to help me focus. Here’s my lo-fi & chilled out witchy playlist and if you’re writing scenes with oomph, you’ll want this playlist instead.

Witchy Writing Tip #2

Pull out your Tarot Cards

TRUST me when I say that using the Tarot for writing is a GAME CHANGER.
These are the things I use it for;

Brainstorming ideas
Plot creation
Sub plot creation
Backstory ideas
Character creation
Pushing past writers block
Warm up exercises before writing
Exercising my creativity muscle

Check out my plot planning pyramid tarot spread for an example of exactly how I use the tarot in my writing practice.

When creating characters a simple spread to try is to pull 3 cards.
Card 1 tells you what type of character they are, card 2 gives you their strength and card 3 their weakness.
Example:
Card 1: Knight of Wands - Our character is reckless, quick-spirited, bold and brash. Perhaps a young man, desperate to prove himself.
Card 2: Ace of Pentacles - Our characters strength is luck! He always has the odds stacked in his favour, and most gambles work out for him.
Card 3: The Sun - Our characters weakness is toxic positivity. This guy cannot see anything but the glass half full, which gets him into lot’s of tricky situations where people take advantage of him.

What a fun, well rounded and complex character we just created in literally 30 seconds!

You can also experiment with asking these sorts of questions;

How should character A respond to character B?
What am I missing in this scene?
How can I increase the tension here?
What is this chapter missing?

moon phases — Witchy Writing Tip #3

**Flow with the cycles.**

Witchy Writing Tip #3

Flow with the cycles.

NaNoWriMo takes place over a 30 day period.
For 2023 we begin in the waning moon phase so take it easy on yourself at this time and don’t burn yourself out too soon! You cannot give 100% every single day.

In the waning phase I like to give myself a goal of writing 1 sentence every day. Just one.
This takes the pressure off achieving huge word counts every day and let’s be honest, I can never stop at one.

We then have the New moon on the 13th and it’s all up from there! Take advantage of the moons waxing phase as the energy builds your momentum for a huge finish!

If you have a menstrual cycle, pay attention to your personal cycle over the lunar cycle. Go slow in week 4 and week 1 (bleeding time) of your cycle and give 100% during week 2 & 3 (ovulation). I suggest you save any editing for week 4 of your cycle as your body prepares to shed the uterine lining.

Witchy Writing Tip #4

Create a Writing Ritual

As Witches, rituals are second nature.
You will want to craft something that works best with you and your own practice but here is a step by step ritual idea for you.

Have sacred writing clothes/socks/jewelry that you wear.
Cast a circle to protect your space and energy whilst you write.
Light a candle to your guides, ancestors, deities and spirits to aid you in your creative endeavours.
Cleanse, ground and centre yourself before opening up your document.
Speak words of intent over your computer before you begin.
Close your circle, blow out your candle, remove your sacred items, thank your spirits for their energy, and turn your computer off to close out your ritual.

Witchy Writing Tip #5

Use Candle Magic

As a Witch with a chronic illness, a lot of my magick is what I call “low energy witchcraft” simply out of necessity. Candle magick falls into this category and that also makes it PERFECT for Nano, when we’re short on time and have a limited brain capacity for anything other than writing.

Super low demand candle spells include purchasing a ritually fixed candle spell like Crown of Success or even the Road Opener for when you’re in a tricky slump (aka the middle)… Personally I find a road opener spray to be an even better, low energy mode of this type of working. (side note: I don’t receive any commissions or affiliate anything for those links, I just thought it would be helpful to point you in the direction of my own favourite supplies)

A leveled up version would be to create your own candle magick spell to suit your needs.
Some ideas would be;

Clarity using a blue chime candle and some rosemary
Creativity using an orange chime candle and some cinnamon
Focus using a white chime candle and peppermint
Consistency a brown candle using lemonbalm and/or vanilla

Witchy Writing Tip #6

Invoke a Deity

I have an amazing website source for you and that is GodFinder
So whilst there are some incredible Gods of writing and poetry such as Thoth (my own deity), Mercury, Hermes, Benten aka Benzi-Ten, Bragi, The Muses and Cadmus… you may have a more specific need for your book.

If you’re writing a lovely smutty romance fic then of course you’ll want to be invoking Aphrodite or Venus. Set up a lovely altar, and light a candle or some incense for them when you sit down to write.

Maybe your novel is one of death and war, then Odin would be a good choice. He tends to like some sacrifice so a drop of blood on a candle for him, or dropped at the base of a tree to call his energy into your novel is an idea.

As I said above, I invoke Azazel (angelic spirit) when writing my current WIP but I wouldn’t if I was working on a different piece. I always have Thoth on my altar though, and one of my offerings to him is literally taking time out to write. It’s a good system we have going.

Witchy Writing Tip #7

Join a writing coven

Otherwise known as a writing group! I run a discord called Word Witches for witchy writers that runs year round, but really pipes up during Nano season.

Finding your people can be an excellent motivator and support network.

Writing is fun, but sometimes it’s not.
Writing is easy, but sometimes it’s not.
Writing consistently, every day, for 30 days, with a minimum word count of 1,666 words?!
That’s a gigantic effort and trust me when I say you NEED people around you who get it. Who you can vent to. Who you can turn to when you’re stuck in a rut.

Find your witches. Find your people.

Witchy Writing Tip #8

Employ sigil magick everywhere!

Get out a pencil, and craft together a few sigils to help you achieve your goals.
I’d suggest some sigils for creativity, inspiration, determination, focus, clarity, consistency, guidance and even protection (protect that magical writing space from interruptions!) Don’t forget to charge them up before use!

Here’s a How To Make a Sigil video if you need some help with this.

Now get creative!

I love writing them on rocks and popping them in my pockets or holding them when I need what they symbolise.
You can trace them in the air
Draw them onto your body with markers, moisturiser, bodily fluids or ritual oils
Put them on sticky notes and onto your computer, beneath the keyboard, basically wherever you can.

Witchy Writing Tip #9

Tea Magick

I’m sure you get the gist by now. We want clarity, focus, creativity and an iron strength of will thank you very much.

You can do all of this, with the help of a cup of tea… enchanted tea, obviously.

Now I’m not going to do all the work for you by listing a spell for each, I’m sure as a Witch you have your favourite correspondances and teas, but here’s a little tea spell I like to use every now and then.

Pull out some peppermint tea, steep for 5 minutes (covered) and then you can stir clockwise if adding sweetener, or simply breathe these words over the cup
“Cup of Tea, Cup of Tea, Give me a dose of Clarity
Make it clear so I can see, where and what the words should be”

Witchy Writing Tip #10

Create a writers Book of Shadows

Firstly, I highly recommend using October to plan out your novel and then hitting the ground running on Nov 1st.
If you’ve found this blog in November, well… you’ll know for next year.

My other tip, is to keep notes.

Create a document (I use notion), or grab some spiral notebooks and when you do start writing, keep notes of each character including how you describe them, what words or gestures they use often and how they’re dressed (or any backstory they have). This will help you when bringing them back in for future chapters to create some continuity in description.

While you’re at it, make sure to keep notes of locations too. When you describe a new scene, a city, a bedroom, again, note it down.

I can't tell you how annoying it is to get to chapter 14 and start describing a side characters bedroom and then think "oh damn, how did I describe this last time?" and not only can you not find it, but you can't even remember which chapter it was in. It wastes a lot of time.

Lastly, create a little ‘chapter overview’ for yourself so that you can quickly reference when something happened in the story. This is immensely helpful when it comes to editing later down the track too. Plus moving chapters or plot points around. Trust me, you will forget where and how you wrote stuff, it’s just the nature of the beast.

Here’s how I do mine as an example. it doesn’t have to be a lot, just key points.

Chapter 4

POV
Location
MC meets with X and discuss Y
MC discovers their brother is a werewolf and says “important line in story”
POV switch to brother, hiding in the bushes, watching scene play out
Brother makes plans to go underground before next full moon

So there you have it!

Ten incredible Witchy Tips for Writers Who Want to Win NaNoWriMo!

Of course you can utilise these tips at any time of the year, but personally my inner writer loves the rush and thrill of a full month writing challenge and then hiding in a secret cabinet inside my mind for the other 11 months of the year. It works for my ADHD brain.

I hope to see you on the Discord server and if you have any more tips, or if these ones worked well for you please share in the comments below!

P.S. keep an eye out for my Instagram posts during October and November as I will be sharing some writing and story prompts using the Tarot!

Witchy Tips For Writers Who Want to Win NaNoWriMo