Preparing for NaNoWriMo: Schedule Your Writing
The suggested word count to beat NaNoWriMo is 1,667 words per day, every day. November is a short month. If you’re in the US, it’s even shorter because of things like Thanksgiving and Black Friday. With several days out of commission, you need to be super-focused when it comes to writing and front load your word count.
I understand my methods won’t work for everyone in The Lurkdom. I’m lucky in having way too much free time, no children, and a husband that’s totally on board with me hiding away with a computer and doing nothing else.
During the first week of NaNoWriMo, I like to exceed the daily word count goals. Since you’re in the honeymoon phase of writing anyway, this shouldn’t be difficult. Instead of a daily goal of 1,667 words, round it up to 2,000. Even that small of a bump, gives you five free days. The first few days of NaNoWriMo, I aim to double my daily word count so that way I have more days to play with in case there’s a day where my word count is nonexistent.
Once your daily word count is determined, set your writing hours and treat this time as you would a day job. Take your computer (or notebook if that’s how you roll) and sequester yourself until you meet your word count. If you have a day job, you can get additional words in during lunch and breaks. Last year, I would show up to work two hours early and write out a scene or two.
That’s it. As yours truly has all the time in the world this month, I’m going to challenge myself to complete my draft in two weeks.
Are you doing NaNoWriMo? How are you going to schedule your writing time?
Also, I was interviewed at The Kelworth Files. You can check it out here.
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Last.fm hit of the day: Better Off Dead by Anathema
I plan to write for an hour before work, during my commute, lunch break, and an hour before bed. I want to get as much done as possible in the first two weeks. Good luck!
For some reason I did not realize that just by bumping up to 2K a day you save 5 ENTIRE DAYS. That is rad. I love beating the daily word count, and whenever I'm really on a tear I try not to let anything distract me. Super productive days are so rare, you gotta make the most of them!
And I love the idea of showing up early to work! Then you get writing done AND you look like an all star to the day job peeps… genius!
We're on the same track! I wanted to aim for about 2000 words per day, at least for each week. And I also want to block aside at least 2 solid hours of just writing, which will be kind of hard but I'll make it work. Excited to get started. 🙂
I'm officially jealous. I always want to be in the right writing place for NaNo, but I always seem to be revising (and NEED to be revising). Maybe next year. 🙂
Great plan, Alicia! And good luck!
Great post! I'm actually a little behind from yesterday, but I plan to make it up today and this weekend I'll write extra. I'm always paranoid about time and I get to work early. I usually sit in my car and use the extra time to get words in. 🙂