Getting through

The best way to get through NaNo is to take your time.

The idea of not spending hours and hours at the keyboard, pounding away as the ideas ebb and flow may seem self-defeating, but it does serve a purpose.

The first couple of days to a week are filled with frenetic activity, of people trying to get as much down as possible. That's all good, but if you're in for the long run, then steps must be taken to ensure that you can finish.

There is nothing worse than the second and third week doldrums. By the fourth week, panic sets in if you're behind on the schedule.

For those who have plots and outlines and have run it through the internal editor so many times the editor's run away, those weeks are more about the writing, because there's no need to panic; they know what direction to go in. For those of us who eschew such things as plots and outlines, the month is a mountain to climb, something like Everest, thought that is a molehill compared to writing.

So, how do I do it? How do I manage to put down 150+k in a month or less? By pacing myself. By not ignoring everything else around me and burning out before the deadline. By doing other things.

"Sure, and it's all well and good for you, because you have a fast typing speed." I can hear people say. That's true, but I can't type what I haven't got in my head and, like anyone else who worries about finishing, sometimes the ideas dry up and I'm stuck.

But I take measures against such an unhappy occurrence. I'll type for an hour, an hour and a half, but after that, I'll get up from the keyboard and walk away. I'll do something else for half an hour or twenty minutes. I'll be thinking of something different, too. I'll be blending some coffee to try, I'll be in the garden wondering if I've just killed a new plant or a weed, I'll watch the news or weather for an update, I'll clean part of a room, organise books, watch the muscular workmen building the curb outside my house. I'll do anything except think of the book I'm writing.

When the time is up, I'll sit down, read the last sentence and carry on. And when I'm done for the day, I'll shut down and relax; read a book. Eventually, I'll have, not only the word count, but a book to show for the effort.

It doesn't just work for Nano, it works for other stuff I write, too, and that makes it all manageable.