The NaNoWriMo Reward System

You're going to be writing and you probably need a bit of carrot on the end of that stick. Now, the NaNoWriMo website has these nifty badges you can get on the website for doing things. Some of them are updating your word count, getting to a specific word count, validating, and so on. These are nice and they're nifty if you're really gung-ho about NaNo. I know that I liked them when they were introduced last year and I'm happy they're still there this year.

However, what if you want more reward than just that? What if you want a physical reward? Well, that's what this post is going to be about.

Now, you can set up the milestones however you want. You could make your system start at 1,667 words, the amount you're supposed to be writing daily in order to get to 50,000 words at the end of the month, and add to it until you get to the end. I do recommend, if you're doing it that way, when you get to a zero number or near one, you make it a bigger reward. So, when you get to 10,000 or close to it, you get a $10 Starbucks gift card. Or an iTunes card. Or something worth $10 that you really want or is on your gift list.

Now, what I do, is set it up so that my rewards are when I hit 5K, 10K, 15K and so on until I get to 100K. Now, I do 100K because I am an insane woman, but it is the biggest reward that I can get. One year, I had my 100K reward be a $50 spree on Amazon. I didn't get there, but it was nice to have the possibility of getting that reward. There have been years when my rewards for getting to 5K on the first day is sleep in the next day or have a World of Warcraft (WoW) day. Basically, take a half day off because I have two days of words there. I don't take the entire day off because I don't think it's wise to completely stop writing during NaNoWriMo, but I don't go for broke the day after I hit a milestone. Now, sometimes, if I hit a milestone and it is day 3 when you're supposed to be at 5,001 words, I don't take the day off. I will give myself a $5 Starbucks card instead. You're going to notice there's a lot of either sleep in or play WoW because I'm also on a budget. Also, I don't eat sugar anymore, so it's a bit harder to go "buy a donut" or something like that. So, sleeping in or playing WoW is a very nice treat as I haven't been doing it much lately. After I hit the 50K mark, you'll see it's a lot of Starbucks / Amazon because I usually deflate and don't do anything else for the month. So it helps to have something more tangible after what NaNoWriMo counts as winning.

So, I'm going to leave my reward system for this year's NaNoWriMo below. You are free to model yours off of mine or completely steal it if you want to. Feel free to leave yours in the comments if you want to or hit me up on Facebook or Twitter to talk about them. Until next time, keep on writing and plotting!

Liz's 2016 NaNoWriMo Reward System
5,000: Sleep in the next day
10,000: Sleep in the next day - If reached on November 1st, November 2nd is a slack (only write 1,667 words) / WoW day
15,000: Sleep in / Have a WoW day
20,000: Sleep in / Have a WoW day
25,000: $25 Starbucks Card
30,000: Sleep in / Have a WoW day
35,000: Sleep in / Have a WoW day
40,000: Sleep in / Have a WoW day
45,000: Sleep in / Have a WoW day
50,000: Lunch at Le Peep or, if reached before November 15th, $50 Amazon Spree
55,000: $5 Starbucks / Amazon Purchase
60,000: $5 Starbucks / Amazon Purchase
65,000: $5 Starbucks / Amazon Purchase
70,000: $5 Starbucks / Amazon Purchase
75,000: $25 Starbucks Card
80,000: $5 Starbucks / Amazon Purchase
85,000: $5 Starbucks / Amazon Purchase
90,000: $5 Starbucks / Amazon Purchase
95,000: $5 Starbucks / Amazon Purchase
100,000: $50 Amazon or Etsy Spree