Time to Write and Write to Time and Other Things

And we're back. So, last time, I wrote a sentence about how you can make time for NaNoWriMo even if you think that you can't. Yeah, you can. No, really, you can. I'm not going to talk about getting up early / writing on breaks / so on. You can find better qualified people than me to talk about that. I am a night owl, so I'm the person who would write after everyone's asleep. Anywhere between 9 to midnight is a sweet spot for me during the rest of the year and especially during NaNo.

However, here's how to make the most of your NaNoWriMo writing sessions, even if you're crunching it between everything else.

Before NaNo starts, try to experiment with your writing times. My best and most productive time is what I stated above. However, my second most productive time is between 2 pm and 4 pm. This was done with a lot of trial and error - I am not one of those people who can roll out of bed and fire off 500 words unless it's free writing - but I also know, around 1 am, I'm mentally done. I can do fun things, like play an online game or watch YouTube, but I can't be creative anymore. I got to that point by, one night, writing past midnight. I went until 1 am and tried to push past that. When I got up the next day to continue, I realized I had a ton of gibberish. So, now, I don't write after 1 am. Another way to know that you're not in the right time is that you feel like you're forcing yourself to write. I don't mean blank page problem; I mean a complete and mental block of wanting to do anything but writing. In the morning, the last thing I want to do is writing as I want my coffee, breakfast, and news. In the evening, I want family time and trying to force myself to give it up, even for NaNo, makes me feel guilty. 

Now that you have your writing time figured out, let's go on to how to make the most of it. First, word wars are great. There are a lot of chat rooms open during NaNoWriMo that you could sign onto or find someone in your region. If that doesn't work, then you could also word war against yourself with a timer. Go for 15 or 20 minutes and record how much you write. After that, try to beat your words from last time. Second, the NaNo forum for word crawls, prompts, and sprints is helpful if you have a block. I love this part of the forum because I usually have everything else down but I want just a bit more. I mostly go there for the crawls, which go from a pub crawl to Harry Potter to Pokemon in past years, but there's a lot there that's helpful to get you to write fast.

The last part is that, yes, you're supposed to write 1,667 words a day to get to 50,000 words at the end of the month. However, not everyone can do that on a given day. I recommend, if you're having trouble, to make it less and have catch up days when you know nothing else is going to throw a wrench into your plans. Say, if you have kids, your partner can take the kids to the park on Saturday or Sunday so you can crunch some words in. Or even stay at home and you can put on some headphones and forget about the outside world. It might not work, but it is a suggestion.

Okay, back to prep tomorrow. Until then, keep on writing and don't panic!