PREPTOBER 2022 | Take a Breath

We are two days away from NaNoWriMo. All of us are buzzing with excitement. But as you get hyped up for NaNoWriMo, I want you to take a deep breath and slow down.

Take A Look Around

Assess where you are right now versus where you want to be during NaNoWriMo. If your plan is to write every day for NaNoWriMo, then do you already know where you’ll carve time out of your daily life to do that? If one of your writing goals is to do research for your story, then do you already know what days you’ll be researching and what resources you’ll need to pull from?

Really take a look around. Determine where your starting point is and know what changes you need to make come Tuesday in order to achieve your goals.

This is where planning out your day comes in handy. Before you even begin planning out your new daily schedule for November, you should sit down and determine where you are right now. I’m not just talking about where your time is going. I’m also talking about where you are starting concerning your goals for NaNoWriMo.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself to determine where you are right now:

• Am I doing anything right now to accomplish these goals without even having started my month?
• What is my current day-to-day schedule like?
• What is my current mindset like?
• What is my current physical well-being like?
• Am I willing to tackle these goals?

These questions are important to ask yourself before you dive headfirst into NaNoWriMo.

Setting Yourself Up for Success

Once you’ve figured out where you are right now, it’s time to start thinking about how you’ll set yourself up for success. Knowing what you need to do in order to achieve your NaNoWriMo goals is key. Do not go into NaNoWriMo unprepared.

Ask yourself the following questions to help set you up for success:

• What will I do to accomplish my goals in November?
• What do I need to change in my day-to-day schedule to accomplish those goals?
• What do I need to change in my mindset to accomplish those goals?
• What do I need to change in my physical well-being to accomplish those goals?
• What will I do to enforce will-power to tackle those goals?

A lot of those questions are things that we have been talking about over the course of Preptober, so you should already have an idea of what needs to change for November. Take today and tomorrow to flesh out your answers a bit more.

Becoming the Top 10%

There are tons of people everywhere looking to complete NaNoWriMo, but did you know that only about 10-15% of NaNoWriMo participants actually finish? That means that about 90% of people don’t complete NaNoWriMo.

I’ve already seen some fellow writers getting extremely excited about NaNoWriMo. And there’s nothing wrong with that––I hope you’re at least somewhat excited about NaNoWriMo. But I also hope that by now you have some sort of daily, weekly, and month-long plan to get there. And if not, get to work on it. We have one whole day left before we’re in the thick of it.

You see, the excitement for NaNoWriMo will begin to die down by the end of week one, going into week two. And if you have only your excitement, motivation, and passion to lean on, know that all of that will fade. Those same people who at the beginning of the month are getting overly excited are usually the same people who do not finish at the end of the month because all they had was their excitement to rely on.

So what do we lean on when the excitement fades? For the top 10-15% of us, it’s grit.

Grit is something that comes with routines and consistency. Grit is the boring day-to-day grind that we do in order to achieve our goals despite the obstacles and despite the nay-sayers.

And trust me: NaNoWriMo, if done correctly, is boring. And it should be boring because writing becomes a habit. You are sitting down to write 50,000 words over the course of a month. By plugging away daily at your word count at the same time every single day, you are taking away the element of excitement that so many people thrive on: the ‘what if’ scenarios.

Those ‘what if’ scenarios I’m talking about are the adrenaline rush moments that could have been avoided with a bit of planning and preparation. If you’ve ever had to meet a deadline and had to work on a project until the last minute, then you know that feeling. It’s a whirl of excitement––a moment where your emotions are going wild and your hands are shaking to cross the finish line.

The same thing can happen during NaNoWriMo due to a lack of planning and strategy. I am telling you: do not chase that adrenaline rush. Instead, take a moment now to plan out the day-to-day grind so you do not have try to rush to the finish line at the end of the month at the last second.

Have you heard of the tortoise and the hare? The random burst of energy hare lost while the slow and steady tortoise won. Winning NaNoWriMo is the same thing. Do not become the hare. Become the slow and steady tortoise and you’ll become a part of the 10% to win NaNoWriMo.

So while everyone else is getting super excited and ready to rush into NaNoWriMo––remember to take it slow and go at your own pace. Take a deep breath before you dive in.