Countdown! and a series: Three weird things you should do to win NaNoWriMo

So you’ve signed up for National Novel Writing Month. You’ve read the website, poked around the forums, maybe even picked up a copy of No Plot? No Problem! to keep you company on your high-velocity journey through November. Maybe you have a detailed calendar of word-count and plot goals for every day of the month.

Awesome! Welcome to the rush.

I’m signed up too, for my eleventh year. I’ve learned a few things the hard way about how to make the challenge work for me; with three days left before the adventure begins, I'll be posting each of the 3 weird things I believe we each need to get us across that wordy finish line. Here's the first one!

Weird Thing 1: A bigger goal The site encourages wrimos to aim for 1,667 words per day in order have a 50k word novel by December 1st. The problem with that is: life happens. Germs happen, Thanksgiving-dinner-with–18-of-our-closest-cranks happens. If we aim for a minimum of 2k words per day instead, that’s only an extra 333 words, so it’s not too time-consuming. It adds up fast, though: if we write 2k words daily, we earn at least 5 full days of no new words at all, while still staying on pace.

“But I’m already intimidated by 1,667 words!” you may be thinking.

I hear you, and I have two things to say about that.

1. 2k = 4 sessions of 500 words. If you type a respectable but poky 30 words per minute like me that’s about a 17 minute session. With the original 1,667 word goal, your 4th session would have been 5 minutes long instead of 15 minutes. Is that extra 10 minutes per day worth 5 whole days off during the month?

I thought so. So, set a timer for an hour and a half, and write four sessions. Take a 7 minute break between each session. You’ll be done in less than the time it takes to watch a movie.

2. Try Write or Die. Thousands of Wrimos around the world swear by it, and we’re not wrong. Trust me.

Nanowrimo is my favorite adventure of the year, and I’m so glad you’ll be along for the ride. Come back tomorrow for Weird Thing 2!

What are your tips and tricks?
Do you have concerns I haven’t addressed?
Leave them in the comments!