Sliding Into Home Base with NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo is in the middle of the 4th and final week. When they say slow and steady wins the race, there’s truth in that. I haven’t “won” yet, but I see it on the horizon. And I’m making it there. While some of my NaNo friends passed me days ago—as in several days ago for one of them (Rachel Carrera 🙂 I’m closing that gap to 50,000 words.

My takeaways that I’ve learned from this month are:

• A community of people cheering each other on, engaging in friendly competition to keep each other going strong, is beneficial to a well-rounded successful month.
• One doesn’t have to give up everything to accomplish this huge task of writing 50,000 words in a month. I was still able to live a fairly full life. I said “no” to many things, but still said “yes” to many as well. I still had fun with grandkids, cooked a few meals for my husband (fewer than normal, but yet I did), was part of a Holiday Craft Fair, attended a writing class out of town, had coffee with a friend, even watched a little TV (a lot less than usual, but I certainly wasn’t deprived.) My point is, it’s all about prioritizing. The month of November teaches me how to do that better than anything else can. Now if I can just keep it going for the other 11 months. Not 50,000 words each of those 11 months, mind you, but the prioritization part.
• Slow and steady really does win the race. The number of words per day to win NaNoWriMo is 1,667. Some days all I was able to accomplish was 500 words. One day was only 492. I made up the rest on other days so I could reach my goal. Some nights I was dog-tired. But if I told myself to just write 300 more words before calling it a day, it was a much more achievable goal. And I was 300 words further along. Getting into the habit of writing every day, even if it’s only 300 words—heck, even if it’s only 100 words—you’ll be so much further along than you would have had you decided you just “didn’t feel like it” that day.

I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o’clock every morning.    ― William Faulkner

• Persistence is key. There were days that I hated the story I was writing. There were times I wanted to scrap the whole thing and start over. There were moments when I thought, “What the heck am I doing and why am I doing it?” But as I’ve said before, I’m nothing if not stubborn and persistent. I persevered. I refused to quit. And now that I’m nearing the end of week four, I’m elated. The plot is really coming together, my characters and I are friends again, they know the direction in which they’re going, and the clues are all playing out beautifully.

Winners never quit, and quitters never win. ―Vince Lombardi

• By pushing toward my goal, keeping my eyes on the prize, whether I “felt like it” or not, on November 30th I will have 50,000 words of a first draft, a huge accomplishment, instead of hours of mindless TV, Internet surfing, or social media. I have something to show for my effort—the first draft of the final book in the Melanie Hogan mysteries, Shear Misfortune.

Here’s to another successful month of NaNoWriMo!