This is The Write Now podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 48: 30 Tips For 30 Days Of NaNoWriMo.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps aspiring writers and all writers to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I am your host, Sarah Werner. And it’s that time of year again, that time when at least here in the United States the weather begins to cool, the leaves begin to fall from the trees, people start to go crazy for pumpkin spice, everything, and the first day of NaNoWriMo quickly approaches. If you’ve been a long time listener of the Write Now podcast, you may recall that I did an episode about NaNoWriMo this time last year. It’s episode 27 and it’s called NaNoWriMo and You. It answers the question, what is NaNoWriMo and is it right for me? Which makes it sound like an advertisement for some kind of prescription medication.

Let me back up. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. And it’s a 30-day challenge for writers to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, from November 1st through November 30th. If you do the math, that comes out to about 1,700 words per day, give or take. And as I believe I mentioned in my episode a year ago, it takes a quantity over quality approach to creating your first draft, which actually can be really helpful because it encourages you to just essentially vomit words onto the page and not continually self-edit. So I wanted to do an episode again this year for NaNoWriMo because this is really a rallying point for a lot of writers. It’s a time when we can all come together and bond over something insane that we’re doing.

And I thought I had everything covered in last year’s episode. So I went out for coffee with my friend, Sam. And I was like, “Oh, man, what am I going to podcast about for NaNoWriMo this year?” And kind of with this look of obviously, he said, “How about 30 tips for 30 days?” And I was like, “What a great idea, I’m going to do that.” So I want to give credit to my friend, Sam, for the idea for this episode. And also while he gave me the title for the episode, he did not give me any of the 30 tips that I’m about to share with you. So maybe I get a little credit here too. And even if you decide that you’re not doing NaNoWriMo this year, these tips might still be helpful to you. So I hope that no matter what, you find value in this episode today. Okay. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and dive into 30 tips for 30 days of NaNoWriMo.

Number one, remember you are a writer. There’s no need to feel humble or sheepish. You’re not just a hobbyist. You’re not somebody who’s faking it until they make it. The moment that you sit down to write, you are a writer. And for whatever reason, you are called or compelled to tell your story. If it helps, every day when you sit down to begin writing, say out loud, “I am a writer.” You can say it to yourself in the mirror, you can mutter it to yourself under your breath on the subway, you can scribble it on a post-it note and stick it to your computer monitor. Heck, you can tattoo it on the back of your hand. Just remember these words, I am a writer.

Number two, don’t give up even if you fall behind. I know it’s really, really, really tempting to stop in order to “win NaNoWriMo.” You need to write about 1,700 words per day. So on day one, you need to write 1,700 words. And on day two, you need to write 1,700 more words. And on day three, you need to do the same thing, etc., etc., for 30 days. That sounds very simple, but it’s very easy when you hit, say, day three or four to miss a day. And if you miss, say, day three, then on day four, you have not just day four’s words to write, but day three’s words to write as well, which is a total of 3,400 words in one day. That’s not to say it’s not doable, it’s just a lot of pressure. And if you let it roll over one more day, then you’ve got… I am not great at math, but like 5,100 words. Yeah, 5,100 words that you’ll need to write in one day just to make up for it and so on and so on.

And when you rack up that kind of word with yourself, it’s really tempting to say, “Screw it. I’m just done. There’s no way I can write 5,100 words in one day and then continue on with my normal 1,700 the next day and the next day. I’m just going to give up.” Don’t give up. I’m here to tell you not to give up. If you find this happening to you, know that it is very normal. In last year’s NaNoWriMo episode number 27, I say that, “You know what? You should still use NaNoWriMo as an excuse to write every day.” Maybe just cut back on the number of words that you require of yourself. If 1,700 is a bit much, maybe it’s one-10th of that. So maybe it’s 170 words every day, maybe it’s 500 words every day, maybe it’s 1,000 words every day. If you find yourself falling behind on the mandated 1,700 words, don’t give up. Keep writing every day. Just aim for a word count that fits better with your schedule or is something that’s actually doable with your day job and your family, etc., all vying for your attention.

Number three, scheduled time to write. This one might just be me, but I am a highly disorganized person. And if something is not on my calendar, then I will not remember to do it. And so my calendar is not only things like noon, lunch with Joanna, 6:30, go to the gym, but it’s also things like 10:30, schedule a haircut, 7:30 PM, pay the water bill. So I’ve noticed that when I block off time on my schedule to write, then I actually have a better chance of sitting down to write during that time. Scheduling time to write also reserves the time on your calendar for you to just write. With me, I use my work calendar and it’s digital. And so when I block off a period of time, nothing else gets scheduled during that time. People don’t schedule over it and I can say, “Yeah, nope, sorry, I can’t do coffee this day, I have a prior commitment.” And that lets me set aside that time strictly for writing, which increases the chance that I will actually do it.

Number four, just start. Once again, it’s probably just me that has this problem. But when I sit down to write, I procrastinate. So I sit down and my fingers are poised over the keys, and then I’m like, “Well, maybe I should start dinner, or I can’t really start writing until I straighten this picture in its picture frame,” which includes nailing an extra nail into the wall and then remeasuring the string on the back of the painting and straightening it. And then by the time I’m done with that, I’m like, “Some of the books on my bookshelf are out of alphabetical order by author’s last name, I’d better fix that real quick or it’ll drive me crazy and I can’t write when I’m irritated.” And I’m just, “Oh, I’m so good at making up excuses for myself.”

Maybe you do this too, but your time is so precious. You have to ask yourself, would you rather spend your time straightening that picture or realphabetizing your books, or would you rather use that precious time to create something that’s meaningful and important to you? If you want to make the most of the time that you have to write, especially if you set it aside in your schedule purposely for writing, when you sit down, just start. Start putting words down. Don’t get distracted by social media. Don’t even go out to Facebook or Twitter or whatever it is you’re using. Just sit down and write.

Number five, number five is related to number four and it goes with the theme of just writing. And this is don’t overthink it. Conditions don’t need to be perfect in order for you to write. You don’t need to be in a certain special mindset, you don’t need to have had a certain exact amount of coffee, you don’t need a certain number of candles lit, you don’t need to have tomorrow’s laundry done, you don’t even necessarily need a plot fully formed in your head. This is true with first drafts, but it’s also very true during NaNoWriMo season. Don’t overthink it, just write.

Number six comes from advice that I solicited from a podcast listener and fellow writer, Mark Adam Thomas. His advice was to embrace the suck. Embrace the fact that when you’re writing for quantity and not quality that chances are what you’re writing is not going to be perfect. In fact, it might not even be great or good. But you know what? Their words, and that’s what matters, do not pressure yourself into creating something that is perfect in the first draft. Just put words down. That’s all that matters at this phase. Mark calls it locking away your internal editor. Embrace the fact that this is a first draft and it’s not going to be amazing. But that’s okay because that’s what editing is for.

Number seven also comes from Mark Adam Thomas. And this piece of advice really hit home with me because I’m a very busy person and I’m doing a million things even outside of my day job. And that is to let your family and friends know that you’re doing NaNoWriMo. Let them know that it’s important to you. And this way, they’ll know that, “Okay, maybe I’ll wait until November is over to ask Sarah out for coffee, or maybe I’ll be a little bit more understanding when Sarah says, ‘Thanks but no thanks, I can’t come to dinner.'”

Really, what you’re doing in informing your family and friends that you’re doing NaNoWriMo and that it’s important to you is letting them know that you might not be as available as they would like you to be during these 30 days. And it gives you not only an okay reason to say no to something, but also a little bit of accountability. Because when you tell people, “No, I can’t do this because I’m doing NaNoWriMo,” then later on, they might ask you, “Hey, how’s that novel coming,” which is a great way to be held accountable for actually doing the work in NaNoWriMo. So thank you, Mark, for those great tips.

Number eight, use the NaNoWriMo buddy system. So when you sign up for NaNoWriMo, you have the option to add other people, other participants as your writing buddies. These people know that you’re doing NaNoWriMo. They know what the stakes are, and they know what it takes to do it. They also have access to your author profile at NaNoWriMo where it shows your daily word count. Again, this is a great way to be accountable if that’s something that helps you to write. It’s also just nice to know that someone else is going through the process that you are. It’s a great bonding experience, and I highly recommend it. If you want to be NaNoWriMo buddies with me, I’ve provided a link to my author profile in the show notes for today’s episode. You can also search for Juneva Spragg, which is J-U-N-E-V-A S-P-R-A-G-G. Don’t ask, it’s an old pen name that I don’t use anymore. But the NaNoWriMo system won’t let me change my username. So there you have it. I will be Juneva Spragg forever.

Number nine, decide what creature comforts are important to you and stock up. So I know earlier I said you don’t need a certain amount of caffeine in your system to write. But really what I was talking about was need. So what are the bare minimum circumstances under which you can write and then you should write anyway? But tip number nine here is if you do have some time and space in which to relax and write, you might want some creature comforts. And so for me, my creature comforts are coffee, headphones, and a bag of M&M’s. This is going to sound really weird, but I actually think and write better when I have M&Ms clacking around in my mouth. I don’t know why. And now that I say it out loud, it sounds really weird. So don’t judge me.

But I know for some people, they like to have those creature comforts as they write, or maybe they have snacks or other things that they use as a reward when they hit a certain number of words. And so if your goal for each day is 500 words, maybe that stack of chocolate chip cookies in front of you, maybe you can have one every 100 words or so, or maybe you can eat them all when you hit your word goal. Whatever it is that helps you get to your word count, I say stock up beforehand and make sure that it’s all there for you.

Number 10 is hard. But it’s worth it, really. Number 10 is don’t stop reading if at all possible. I know that when you are making time in your schedule to write, something’s got to give. If you’re adding something to your schedule, there are only 24 hours in a day. And so if you’re adding an hour every day to write, that hour’s got to come out of something else. Whether it’s your sleeping, your relaxing time, time with your family, your lunch break at work, whatever it is, that time’s got to come out of something else.

But I would really encourage you not to take that hour out of your reading time. I would also really encourage you not to take it out of the time you spend with your family. And don’t cut down your hours at work just to do NaNoWriMo. So maybe I’m asking the impossible. But if at all possible, keep reading during NaNoWriMo. I still firmly believe that aside from writing itself, reading is where we learn the most about writing. And it’s good to keep yourself grounded in that sort of work while you’re going through NaNoWriMo. If you decide that you need to cut it, maybe cut it down to like 10 minutes a day, but keep your reading habit going.

Number 11, keep a quick inspiration check easily available. For some people, this is maybe a quote about writing or an inspirational message that tells them not to stop even if they’re exhausted. For some people, this inspirational object may be a book that’s already been published that inspires them such as a copy of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, which I definitely don’t have here on my desk to inspire me to write. Maybe it’s a photograph of a mentor, of a loved one, of a character. Maybe it’s a picture torn out of a magazine that is your focal character in your novel. Maybe it’s a Pinterest board you’ve created of images that inspire you to create a certain mood within your novel, or to write about a certain pair of characters who are destined to fall in love. Whatever it is, keep your inspiration close by so that you can access it whenever you need to.

Number 12, NaNoWriMo is not the season for research. Okay. I made the mistake a couple of years ago of trying to write a historical novel. And it wasn’t necessarily the fact that it was a historical novel that was the mistake, it was the notion that I needed to make it historically accurate as I wrote 1,700 words every day for 30 days. And what that meant was I was taking two steps forward, one step back, or sometimes two steps forward, three steps back because every time I wrote something, I would need to research it, like her shoes clacked across the marble floor. And then it’s like, wait, wait, wait, would they have marble floors during this era? And would she be wearing shoes that had a clacking substance on the bottom during this era? It just snowballed into this giant monster that was untamable.

And so I encourage you to use the NaNoWriMo season to just write. You can research and fact-check later. Just leave notes in the margins or leave comments if you’re doing it digitally. Leave a little note to yourself to, “Hey, look this up later,” and then move on. Do not stop and do research because it’s so easy, or at least maybe it’s just me. It’s very easy for me to get lost in Wikipedia or lost in a research book. So I’ll go looking for one thing to check one fact, and then I’ll get sidetracked and be like, “Ooh, I want to learn about this. And when you’re trying to churn out words as quickly as possible, that can be detrimental. In a similar fashion, the NaNoWriMo website has all of these really awesome forums. And there’s forums for historical novel writers and forms for horror writers and forums for romance writers. Every genre, any genre that you’re writing probably has a really excellent forum.

And that is another place to get lost. It’s another place where you can ask a question like, “Hey, in 1806, would they have this kind of lighting within the average person’s home?” And then you can dig through the forums for an answer and wait for somebody to get back to you, and you’re just going to lose writing time by doing that. So the forums are great, but maybe refer to them after NaNoWriMo is over. And research is great, but maybe do it after NaNoWriMo is over. Use your time from November 1st to November 30th to write. Get that draft out there, no matter how sloppy or inaccurate it is, just write it.

Number 13, pump the music. So I got really hooked on the BBC show, Orphan Black, a few years ago when it came out. And I was amazed because essentially one actress is playing, I don’t know, oodles of characters. Her name is Tatiana Maslany. I watched an interview with her about how she does it, how she jumps from character to character and makes each one so different and so convincing. And she said each of the characters corresponds to a different song. So she has this punk cockney character. And so she has a specific song that she thinks of, that helps her change the way she’s walking and it changes the way she holds her head and the way that she accents her words. And she has a different song for a different character.

And where I’m going with all of this is music can make you feel a certain way. Use it to your advantage, use it to drown out the world around you so that you can concentrate on your writing, use it to psych yourself up to write, use music with lyrics, use music without lyrics, or you can even use ambient sounds. Sometimes I like to go to rainymood.com, which is just an ambient rain generator. And you can just listen to the sound of a gentle thunderstorm in the distance as you write. It helps me focus, it helps me drown out the irritating noises all around me.

Number 14, write what excites you. Sometimes you’re writing and writing and writing, and then you get to this really dull, boring part. And you’re like, “Man, if only I could go to the next scene.” You know what? You can go to the next scene. You can jump around. You don’t have to write your novel in order. If you’re really excited about the ending, then write the ending. If you want to go back, if you’re inspired to like add a scene, go back and add that scene. As long as you’re adding new words and not meticulously editing word for word, what’s already there, go for it. Write your novel out of order if that is what helps you stay excited about writing it.

Number 15, don’t be afraid to use a prompt. The internet is a magical place, and not just because you can watch kitten videos forever. There are also a ton of writing prompts out there for fiction and nonfiction. Sometimes if you’re feeling stuck, those can be a great place to look. They can be a personal place to start writing from such as write about the time in your life when you were most afraid, or they can be like aliens have landed in your front lawn and they want you to take… I don’t even know where I’m going with that something alien related.

We’re halfway through with this list. No, seriously though, prompts can be really, really useful. So I encourage you to use them if you like. I also have this really cool thing called story dice. They were a gift from my mother-in-law for Christmas and it’s this little bag of dice and there’s six of them. And each one has six different icons on it. So the idea is you take the dice and you roll them, and then you make a story out of the different symbols that you see. And it’s supposed to be able to prompt you to think about what to write next. So, hopefully, you’ll find that helpful.

Number 16, turn off your phone. I read this study that said we look at our phones some 1,000 times a day. And I didn’t believe it until I caught myself doing it. I would look at the notifications on the screen and just immediately get distracted or say, “Oh, hey, I have all these new texts to respond to, or I want to check on my Instagram post is doing.” And then like 30 minutes later, I realized that I’ve just wasted 30 minutes. So when you write, turn off your phone. It will only distract you.

And if you can’t bear to turn it off, like if you maybe have a family member that might call you, or an important situation that might arise at work, put your phone in airplane mode and allow for it to ring if an important call is coming through, or silence it, or whatever you need to do. Just do not let your phone distract you. I’m a big advocate of just turning the thing off because no good will come of Sarah playing with her phone while she is attempting to write.

Number 17, this is one that I learned the hard way. And this is to keep it portable. So what I mean by that is if you can’t schedule a time to be at your desk writing every day between a certain time and in a certain time, your novel might need to be portable. So you might need to take it with you to work so that you can write over your lunch break, or take it with you to the doctor’s office so that you can write there, or take it with you on the subway as you’re riding home from work, or maybe you have a very loud house or lots of kids and you need to get away, you need to actually get away from your house to write every day.

The best thing you can do is to keep your novel portable. So I’ve done this a couple different ways. Before I had a laptop, I would hand write my novel in spiral bound notebooks. And I know my sister, Rebecca, did this too. She would write during free time in high school. And by the end of November 30th, she had over 50,000 words because she had it with her everywhere she went. Now, I have a laptop and I write before work and then over my lunch break often. I also make sure it’s with me if I want to swing by a coffee shop on a weekend when I have some free time. So don’t let the portability of your novel or the unportability of it deter you from writing. So if you will only write on a typewriter from 1920, just know that that will come with some portability limitations. I don’t know if you can log that everywhere you go.

Number 18, stay away from time sucks. This requires being a little bit honest with yourself about how you spend your time. A few points ago, I admitted to you that I am not always the best steward of my free time when I have my phone in hand because I’m always checking notifications and just doing useless little things that don’t really provide value to anyone, let alone on myself. So if you know that when you log onto the internet you’re going to spend 40 minutes on Facebook that you could otherwise spend writing, maybe go on a Facebook fast for the days of November, or maybe don’t let yourself sign onto the internet in the morning when you’re writing or during your writing time. Whatever it is, be honest with yourself about how you waste your time. If there’s a TV show you really don’t care about, but you’re devoting an hour every day so watching, maybe just cut it out for the month of November and use that time to write instead.

Number 19, just say no to fear. I’ve talked about fear on the show before. And I’ve talked about how debilitating it can be to any writer anywhere at any time. Frank Herbert said in Dune that fear is the mind killer. And I would add that it’s also the novel killer. Some people don’t even start to write because they’re too afraid. I don’t want to belittle that or make it seem like it’s not important, or like it’s not a real issue because fear keeps me from writing all the time. I wonder about what if I fail or about what if I’m not good enough?

I have a secret for you. You are a writer and what you write will be good enough because NaNoWriMo is a time for writing terrible things. And there’s a beautiful freedom in that. It also might help you to know that even the great writers feel fearful that their writing won’t be any good. But you know what? That’s not what matters right now. What matters is reaching your word count every day. There’s no room for fear. The only thing fear is going to do is stop you from writing those words. So say no to fear and right anyway.

Number 20, tone down your need to win. I know there’s a lot of pressure to “win NaNoWriMo.” And that is to hit 50,000 words by the end of the day on November 30th. But honestly, if you are writing every day, or if you are trying your best to write every day to reach these 1,700 word per day limit or to reach your own limit of 200 words per day or 500 words per day, that’s winning. You don’t have to say 50,000 words or bust. All you have to do is show up every day and right.

Number 21, take care of yourself. Some people get really into NaNoWriMo, and I mean like really into NaNoWriMo. They won’t accept anything fewer than 1,700 words a day and they will do it at any cost. But if you find yourself cutting down your sleep to something that’s not healthy so that you have more time to write, or skipping meals so that you have more time to write, or not taking care of yourself in some other way, that’s not okay. You are important. And you being healthy and awake and able to function is more important than reaching an arbitrary number of words per day. So please take care of yourself during NaNoWriMo.

Number 22, go into NaNoWriMo with the mindset of helping out your future self. This is something that really helps me to write, especially during NaNoWriMo because often the way that I live gets the opposite result. So my future self is often mad with my past self like, “Sarah, why did you spend four hours watching Netflix when you could have spent like two of those hours at least writing, or doing something constructive with your time?” So instead of filling your future self with regret, do your future self a favor. Plan ahead, set yourself up for success. Schedule that writing time and do it. And later on, your future self will thank you.

Number 23, just say no to formatting, cover design, etc. So I’m a writer and I am familiar with all of the ways that writers procrastinate. One of these is going through your manuscript and deciding that you hate the font and changing it, and then realizing that, well, the chapters would be more visible if you made them a little bit bigger and maybe bold, and then realizing like, “Oh, yeah, I should probably put page numbers at the bottom. Just in case I print this out, and then I’m carrying it around and a windstorm and blows it away so I can put the pages back in the right order, or you know what? Maybe I should have two different fonts, one for this character’s thoughts and one for this character’s thoughts, or what would be really cool is if I had an awesome cover. I think I’m going to spend 27 hours designing a cover for my book.”

Okay. That stuff can be fun, but it’s not conducive to writing your novel. So when I write, I usually try to use a word processor such as OmmWriter or even just my Notepad, my text editor on my computer, so that I’m not tempted to fool around with fonts and font sizes and page numbers and indents and little fancy [inaudible 00:30:51], paragraph separators, and all that stuff. Just focus on the words. I know some writers like to have a cover. That’s their piece of inspiration that keeps them going. And that’s fine. If you need to create a cover to keep yourself inspired to keep writing, then do it. But don’t spend too much time on it because all of the time that you spend doing that, you could be spending writing.

Number 24, don’t despair or think that doing all of this writing just for the sake of writing is a waste of time. I think it was Malcolm Gladwell who came up with what’s called the 10,000 hour rule. And I want to say that, A, it’s not a proven rule, B, I think it was recently even disproven. But I like the concept. And that concept is you need to spend 10,000 hours doing something before you can really call yourself a master. So right now, you’re a writer. If you want to become a master writer, you need to invest a lot of time perfecting your craft. NaNoWriMo is a great time during which to do that. You’re writing for a certain number of hours, maybe every day, maybe every week. You’re definitely putting in a big chunk during the month of November. And that can only help you in the long run.

Number 25, try creating an outline. Okay. This is one of those things where people will say there’s two kinds of writers, a planner and a pantser. So someone who plans things out, or someone who does things by the seat of their pants. I happened to be a pantser. I am just notoriously terrible at taking the time to outline things because I love the thrill of discovery as I am “pantsing” or writing on the fly. But sometimes a little guidance is needed. And so however loose, however dense you want it to be, try creating an outline. Get your basic story arc in place, or maybe get your characters growth arc in place. That can give you a nice way to structure your novel, and it can keep you going when you feel like you’ve stalled.

Number 26 is a little bit of a cheap shot, and that is to pump up your word count by adding chapter titles or maybe quotes or part one, part two, part three sort of things. If you find yourself getting stuck, you can put in a quote, or if you just want a little bit of a free space on your bingo card of writing, so to speak, go ahead and write out chapter 1 or chapter 40-2. Sometimes it’s nice to have a few free words to bump up your word count.

Number 27, when you’re stringing together your story, don’t use and, use but. I say this because and stories are boring and but stories are interesting. That did not come out the way that I wanted it to. Good grief. Okay. Let’s phrase this differently. Stories that use and to connect their different points turn out to be just a dull, chronological list of events. So, Mary went to the beach, and then she saw a boat, and then the boat sailed away, and then Mary got a sunburn, and then Mary went home to put aloe on her sunburn. It’s just this boring series of events.

Using the word but as a conjunction, however, makes things a little more interesting. Mary went to the beach, but it was raining. And so she went into a cafe, but the cafe was haunted. So she left, but a ghost chased her. Okay, those are both really terrible stories, but one of them is structured by scenes just passively happening. And the other one creates more of a cause and effect chain that keeps the reader engaged. So when in doubt, don’t use and, use but.

Number 28, if you have PTO to use, maybe use it for NaNoWriMo. Here in the United States, PTO stands for paid time off. And it’s your vacation/sick time allotment that you get for the year. If you have a whole bunch of vacation or sick time built up, I say why not use it for NaNoWriMo? You can have yourself a little writer’s retreat, either at your house or somewhere else and get some good quality writing done. Me I’m out of PTO because my brother got married this year and I just came back from vacation. So this is not a luxury that I have. But if you have it and if it’s one of those things where if you don’t use it you lose it, go ahead and use it.

Number 29, be patient with yourself. I’ve talked about this before on the show, but sometimes you just need to give yourself some grace. You’re not going to write the great American novel in your first draft in 30 days. You’re not going to write a work of heartbreaking and staggering genius in 30 days. You’re going to write some words and some of them are going to be decent, some of them are going to be terrible, some of them might be good, but be patient with yourself. If you get frustrated that you’re not producing genius level work, that’s okay. No one is expecting that of you. If you find yourself getting impatient with yourself, or if you find yourself just getting increasingly frustrated, go back and listen to Write Now episode 38, Give Yourself Some Grace. I think it’ll help.

And finally, number 30, have fun. NaNoWriMo is the marathon for writers. It’s something that we can look forward to. It’s 30 days in which we can celebrate being creative and writing bad stuff and getting away with it and laughing about it and bonding over it. NaNoWriMo is at its core supposed to be fun. If NaNoWriMo turns your life into a living hell, that’s not really what it’s supposed to do. If you find that things aren’t going well, or if you’re just miserable, it’s okay, you don’t have to do it. If that’s the case, lower your daily word count goal to something more manageable. Follow some of the other tips that I’ve given you in this episode.

Remember, you are a writer, but you’re a writer for a reason, and it’s because you love writing, or you are compelled to write, or you need to write. There’s some joy at the end of the writing tunnel. Writing is hard work. I know that, first and foremost. It is hard work. And people who think that writing is easy, when they sit down to actually try to write something, they often realize just how hard it is and they say, “Oh, I thought this was fun.” You’re always going on and on about how much you love writing, and I’m like, “Yes, it’s hard work, but I love it.” It’s complicated. But when I write, there’s a joy that comes in knowing that I am doing what I was made to do, what I’m called to do. So, well, writing is hard work and often very frustrating.

Remember at the end of the day that this is what you love and that NaNoWriMo is a great way to celebrate this thing that you love and have fun and be in community about it. So don’t beat yourself up too hard. Give yourself some grace and have fun. I actually came up with more than 30 tips. Once I started writing these down, I kept going. One of the tips was to go back and listen to all the episodes of the Write Now podcast for inspiration. But then I figured that that would be too corny, or I don’t know, it’s smacked of nepotism somehow. But count that as a bonus. So if you want more inspiration, go back. I think I have some pretty decent episodes that you can listen to, including number 27, which is NaNoWriMo and You, and number 38, which is Give Yourself Some Grace.

There are so many people that I want to thank for being amazing and for keeping this podcast going with their wonderful donations. If you’re interested in joining them and contributing financially to the Write Now podcast, that is awesome. I use Patreon, which is a secure third party donation platform that allows you to give a certain amount per podcast episode, say 50 cents an episode, $1 an episode, $10 an episode, $1 billion an episode, whatever you are moved to donate. So if you find value in this show, go on to patreon.com. That’s P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com and search for the Write Now podcast.

Alternately, there are links available in the show notes for today’s episode. So just click “Support This Podcast” and it will take you right to my Patreon site. Notably, I would like to thank official cool catch, Sean Lock, official bookworms, Matthew Paulson and Rebecca Warner, official rad dudes, Andrew Coons and the Sioux Empire Podcast, official caffeine enablers, Colleen Cotelessa and Paul Sating, and all of my other supporters, including many who have asked to remain anonymous. So thank you so much for your support. I truly appreciate it.

If you’d like to support my show but don’t really have the finances to do it, that is perfectly okay. You can help support my show in a couple of ways. And that is to subscribe to my show on iTunes. You can also tell a friend or family member who is interested in writing about my show. A word of mouth is one of the best ways that people find out about my show. So let someone know about the Write Now podcast and encourage them to find me on sarahwerner.com, that’s S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R.com, or on iTunes, Overcast, or really any other podcatcher.

Ooh, finally. If you’d like to get in touch with me, if you have questions about this episode, if you’d like to share your own NaNoWriMo story, I love to get emails. And so you can do that a couple ways. You can go out to my website, sarahwerner.com and click on the contact tab, and that’ll just take you to a short form that you can fill out, and that goes straight to my email. Alternately, you can email me at hello@sarahwerner.com. Again, that’s S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R.com. I would love to hear from you. And with that, this has been episode 48 of the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps aspiring writers and all writers to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I’m Sarah Werner, and good luck this November.