NaNoWriMo: Week Two

Follows: Week One

You’re still here? Great. Genuinely, well done. You’ve got past one of the hardest parts of this entire process. You have some tough spots coming up later but you’re in a relatively easy spot this week, so take a moment to enjoy overcoming the hurdle of the first part of NaNoWriMo.

Now that’s out the way, you need to consider what next week will look like.

The coming week is going to be a bit of a slower week than this week. Not as slow as the first week, but it’s important that you don’t burn yourself out, which is a very real possibility. Writing is hard work; it’s draining and takes a significant psychological toll on you, especially if you’re not used to writing to a structure like this.

Create Your Plan

Your plan for next week is to take stock and see if your writing is moving along as expected. You’ll need to do some writing as well, but you also need to make sure that you take care of yourself.

Execute Your Plan

What you need to do now, at the end of the second week, is take some time to look back at what you’ve done so far and see if it follows your original plan. If it doesn’t, do you need to adjust something in what you’ve written, or do you need to adjust your plan? Probably the plan. If that’s the case, take a look at where the book is heading now and work a bit on the new direction. Then, next week, start writing again. In terms of word-count, aim for three sessions at 3,000 a-piece—if you can squeeze an extra thousand words somewhere, that will bring your total word-count up to a nice round 35,000 going into the fourth week. But what’s more important than anything writing-related this week is to have fun. Spend time with your friends, go for a drink, make sure you’re not locking yourself away to do this. If you’re already managing to balance NaNoWriMo and having a normal life then well done you, but if you’re struggling then make sure that you take this time to have some kind of a life. You’ll need it.

Take care of yourself: do something you enjoy outside of writing.

You’re about to reach the half-way point and so you’re probably going to start to feel the strain of this, if you aren’t already. That’s why it’s so important to take care of your mental state. Also, if your word-count isn’t where you’d want it, or where others are getting theirs ahead of you, don’t worry. It isn’t a big deal. You’re doing a great job. If you’re where you wanted to be, great job too. This isn’t an easy task to complete and a lot of people don’t make it this far. Keep going.

Next: Week Three