25 | November | 2013 | awritersfountain

It has been refreshing to write some non-nano blog posts about writing events I have attended over the weekend, last week was fairly busy and I was tired. This week I have lots to catch up on with the NaNo Challenge and PAD challenge as well as preparing for my set this week.

I have noticed today in surfing around that a lot of people are falling into 2 camps at this stage of NaNo –

Those who have reached or are close to reaching their 50K goal and
those who are nowhere near and falling behind.

Do not lose faith there is still a week – 7 days…. I had 15000 left to write when I started this evening – now I have less. Every word you manage is a word more to count…. so JUST KEEP GOING! You may get there!

Day 25

Now any Wrimo will tell you that the problems start when the word counts dip or you miss days. 5 days ago I had written 34404 words. I was slightly ahead of the 33333 target. Then I got busy; Mainly with work and a couple of nights where I had neither the time nor energy to write much. This past weekend I was out all day Saturday at the Writers’ Toolkit Conference and Sunday at the Open Mic event.

Today I am trying to catch up – despite having the day off work I had other plans and so needed to spend the late afternoon and evening (now) catching up and here’s how I am managing.

TOP TIPS (FOR THOSE FALLING BEHIND!)

By trying not to think about the mountain I am going to have climb… Just look those few paces ahead, the next 100 words and the next,

Banish all thoughts of – OH MY! I have 4000 – 6000 – 10000 words to catch up on.

Keep updating the word count every time you need a writing break – I have been updating mine every few paragraphs, by 100 words or 500 odd and before you know it you have added 1000s of words!

I started this afternoon about 2.5 hours ago with just 35000 (having not written more than 596 words in 4 days!

35000 words have become 37120 (2120 words written so far today) today’s number 41666 (the devil’s in the detail!) That’s 4546 words to go which I realistically will not manage tonight – I have work tomorrow and flashes to edit for printing tomorrow before Wednesdays event.

I am working tomorrow but have had the evening plans cancelled. This will give me a few extra hours of writing time. Of course a bit like a high credit loan everyday adds another couple of 1000 words onto the running total and when you don’t have a stretch of more than 7 days ahead of you before the deadline it can get pretty hot under the collar! (So wear a round neck!)

So my next tips;

Carve out some time – re-schedule.

Work out how many words you have left and find out what your daily total needs to be – the greatest joy of NaNoWriMo is to watch the end word counts fall and treat yourself to word counts like 1190 – however, it is still achievable even if you have not managed to stay on track – my daily word count has to be 1840 (which is possible!) as long as I manage at least that tonight.

The next step is to check your schedule.

Day 26 – work + Time
Day 27 – Event + Time
Day 28 – Work + event = pockets of time need to be found to manage 1840
Day 29 – event + Time
Day 30 EVENT pockets of time need to be found to manage 1840
Day 31 NaNoWriMo Deadline day and also a day with a bit more time to finish up if need be (Buffer)

Then get off your blog and get on with it!

I tried to push through 38000 barrier – but I am drained now and have editing for my set on Wednesday (my 1st Flash Fiction event) I have worked out I need to write just over 2000 words a day to reach the 50K by the end of November.

I hope to get a bit done before Thurs to allow for less than 2000 a day after that. I will get there – this is my first NaNoWriMo and I AM going to win it!