Lauren van Vliet, author

On Halloween I was like a kid waiting for Christmas. It wasn’t because I love Halloween, or because I was excited to play Christmas carols. It was because National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) started on November 1.

During the month of November thousands of people around the world attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, which works out to about 1,667 words per day. For many, this seems like an insane goal. For me, it was an opportunity to do something that sounded crazy, and that many other people wouldn’t attempt. I was feeling so crazy, I gave myself a second goal: to completely finish the draft of the novel (estimated: 80,000 words) by the end of November.

As with all experiences in life, I learned a few things along the way:

1. I really do make time for things that are important to me – making time for my priorities isn’t a new revelation by any stretch; I’ve always done it without thinking about it, but preparing for NaNoWriMo provided a concrete reminder of how powerful it is. Towards the end of October, I noticed myself intentionally freeing up time in November so I would have time to write. Specifically this was so I could attend as many of the NaNo Write-In’s (participants getting together to write) as I could. Having the 50,000 word goal also changed my morning routine (I started logging a solid half hour of writing before leaving for work), and how I spent my weekends (a lot of time writing). When it comes to the other goals that I haven’t been keeping I realize that maybe I need to re-evaluate how important the goal actually is and start setting goals that reflect what is important to me. Or that maybe they need to be re-evaluated to be more meaningful (see number 2), so I will want to make time for them.
2. Goals need to push you out of your comfort zone, but they also have to be meaningful – I’m sure we’ve all heard some variation of the advice that we need live outside of our comfort zone because that’s where life happens. It gets repeated because there is some truth to that statement. The trick is finding goals that not only take us there, but inspire us to do it. A prime example is posting on the blog. Every month begins with the best of intentions to post twice per week, which was a goal I set for 2017. It’s a good SMART goal, but it didn’t inspire me to actually want to do it. I didn’t really know what I wanted to write about, and no amount of brainstorming post ideas or talking to other writing friends was getting me energized to do it. When it came to NaNoWriMo, it didn’t matter that I didn’t have the whole novel figured out, or that many days I started a chapter with no idea what the first words should be. The crazy word count goals I set for myself inspired me to tackle the novel. What I produced (the novel), is less important than actually writing 50,000 words in a month. So I’ve set a new ridiculous word goal for the coming year (see the end of the post), one that isn’t tied to a specific project. I’m optimistic that I’ll be more motivated to blog as a way to complete this new goal.
3. Never underestimate the power of a sticker (or other visual tracker) – There is a strong NaNo community where I live, and our fearless leaders (called Municipal Liaisons, or MLs) have instituted a sticker system. Every time we attend a write-in or get our personal best in a word war (writing as many words as you can in a set amount of time) we get a sticker. I now have a small collection of random stickers. I also have a word tracker on my fridge where I write down my word count everyday and colour in little boxes. And there’s a bar graph on the NaNo website that updates automatically when I add words to my count. All of these are helpful motivators to keep going. They don’t actually change anything, other than I want to see the line continue to go up, the word count increase, and pick another Star Wars sticker so the droids won’t be lonely by themselves with the cartoon Disney characters. I have spent some time already finding ways that I can visually remind myself of my goals and progress for writing goals when November ends, and for other goals entirely.
4. Sometimes the intense burst of focus is necessary – I maintained a (personally) blistering pace for most of the month. My average word count is about 2,100 words/day. On my wordiest day I wrote over 4,400 words. This breakneck pace and clear schedule isn’t necessarily sustainable long term (there are busy seasons for other areas of my life), but having this intense focus for the month of November was really helpful to finally tackle this novel. It’s the third in a trilogy that I’ve been working on for about five years. The intense focus is helping me to get it done so I can move on to the next writing project.

There’s a week of NaNoWriMo left. I passed the 50,000 word mark yesterday (Nov. 23), and the jury is still out as to whether I will actually finish the novel by the end of the month. Regardless, I am on to bigger, crazier goals. Next up: MilWordy, or writing one million words in a year (so expect to see more posts from me).