National Novel Writing Month. There are songs about it, tons of social media posts, and it’s perhaps the most ubiquitous writing event of the year.
NaNoWriMo believes in the transformational power of creativity. We provide the structure, community, and encouragement to help people find their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page.
The work done by the NaNoWriMo organization is awesome. The Young Writers Program is great, and it has undoubtedly helped many writers become novelists and authors. The concept of writing a 50 000 word novel in a month is daunting but, for many, doable. It’s only ~ 1 666 words a day after all. NaNoWriMo can help writers connect with others, as there are many options for finding local groups and like-minded individuals all over the world. If you struggle with routine and thrive with external accountability, as well as shine under pressure, then NaNoWriMo is an excellent undertaking.
But (and this is a big but)
You are not required to do NaNoWriMo to be a successful author or writer.
A Write of Passage?
Tracking your work, whether it’s word count, pages, time spent researching, etc etc is laudable. Accountability is important when working on a project that, at the end of the day, you need to be self-motivated for. There are many ways to do so. Personally, I use the Scrivener project goals and words tracker when I’m actively writing. When I’m editing, I keep track of it in a Google spreadsheet.
My editing tracker, with dates, word counts, and pages edited. The most important part of this editing tracker is the page tally, not the word count.
It’s important to hold yourself accountable, and NaNoWriMo can absolutely encourage doing so. Having goals is always a great way to end up creating something. Reasonable goals are successful goals. Herein lies why I don’t compete in NaNoWriMo:
A 50 000 word novel manuscript (after all, it isn’t a completed novel just because you’re done the first draft) written in a month isn’t an attainable goal for me. There are 8 days of weekends, which means the 1 666 words a day turns into approximately 2 272 words a day. That is a lot of pressure on a high daily word count. Subtract another 1 day a week for health problems, which means it’s 18 days to complete 50 000—or 2 777 words per day. For some, that might be an excellent challenge to rise to. For others, it’s an unreasonable goal that leads to the least ideal outcome: burnout. You don’t need to set yourself on fire to produce your art.
Setting Reasonable Goals
Terry Pratchett, love or hate his writing, was a prolific author. Part of his success was setting reasonable goals: 400 words a day, every day. To put that in perspective, that’s fewer words than this blog post. It’s an attainable goal, and if not then set it lower. 200 words a day, or even 100 words a day. The important part isn’t how many words you write, but that you write every day. Writing is a skill that requires consistency for improvement. If you write 100 words a day, you will write a 50 000 word novel in 500 days. If you write 400 words a day, you’ll write a 50 000 word novel manuscript in less than 6 months. Fewer days if you overachieve and write more than your goal. If you consistently beat your daily goal, bump it up by 50 or 100 words. Find a goal that you feel proud of hitting, but can reasonably do. You are running a marathon, not a sprint when you write.
Remember your health
Your mind, your creativity, that well you plumb for your stories, requires care. Your hands, your wrists, your brain, they all need to be kept in the best possible shape to for you to be able to write. Take breaks. Schedule time off. A work/life balance will improve your art, prevent burnout, and above all else: help keep you healthy. The idea of the sick, starving, suffering artist may be romantic but it is not a goal you should be aiming for. Write every day on your work days (AKA: the days you designate for writing), and take breaks on your free days. Whether these coincide with your day job (if you have one) or are on a different schedule, that’s up to you. Whatever works best to preserve your mental and physical health.
Create reasonable goals, set healthy work boundaries, and hold yourself accountable to them. To those who can do so while participating in NaNoWriMo: remember to drink water, get up and stretch your body every so often, and get out in the sun once a day. To those who can’t: same advice.
Go forth and write!
-L.J.
Author of The Dying Sun, Book 1 of The Gods Chronicle.
Pedantic Scribe of the ‘Scribe’s Journey Podcast’
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