NaNoWriMo: Final Week Slog

1. Have you been on nanowrimo.org yet to verify your word count? Remember, your word application may be different than the official NaNoWriMo counter – I’d hate for you to verify at 11.59 pm on November 30th, only to realize they count hyphenated words differently, and you’re 75 words down. 

1. Speaking of word count, are you just a few words short, but have neatly finished your piece, and cannot bear to think about writing in a tiny scene or prologue? The find and replace functions in your writing applications are a life saver. Turn those won’ts, can’ts, and should’ves into will nots, can nots, and should haves. Yes, it’s sneaky, but when the choice is between writing a superfluous scene for word count sake, or just expanding the great prose you’ve already written, I know which one I’d take. 

1. Need to really push yourself? Do a word sprint. Lock yourself in a room for 10 minutes, and do nothing but type. You will be amazed at the word count you can get when your sole focus is just the work. Heck, tweet me @mrssheawong and challenge me to a write off – we’ll set a time to start/finish and whoever wins gets bragging rights. The point is to push, and push hard, but enjoy yourself. 

1. Just this once, look back. On October 31st, you were staring nervously at your writing station, fingers itching to create. You may have had a dossier of character work, timelines, and plot points. You may have had the remnant of a dream written on the back of a cocktail napkin. Either way, you, and I, and so many others watched as the clock ticked over to November 1st. And here we are, just a few weeks later, and think of what you’ve accomplished so far! You wrote. You created. You pushed forward. And you didn’t do this in a hermetically sealed bubble, cut off from the world (although if you did do that, and you have the name of the bubble maker, please pass it to me in time for next NaNoWriMo). You dealt with real life at the same time. This past month my kid had apparently every doctor appointment on the planet, all over London. The boiler died, which meant two days of workmen and holes in walls and calamity. I caught the dreaded first lurgy of the season, and spent more time last week sneezing than typing. And of course, all the normal day-to-day stuff didn’t stop. But I didn’t give up, and neither did you all, and I’m proud of all of us for it. 

You may have already hit your target, and are currently wearing your cool winners’ tee shirt. You may not hit the 50K. Heck, I may not hit the 50K. But I’m not giving up – till 11.59 on November 30th ticks over to the first of December, I’m pushing. And I hope you’ll all be pushing as well, and proud that you took a month to do something amazing for yourself. 

See you on the other side of November. And write.