Last day of NaNoWriMo! I wrote 1,000 words last night. My NaNo total so far is a nice round 35,000. My manuscript is a healthy 60K. OK, maybe ‘healthy’ is the wrong description. There’s a lot of waffle to edit out!
Well, how did I get here while working full-time and still having a life? I used my trusty Be Focused productivity app, which kind of works like high-intensity interval training. 25 minutes of writing, followed by five minutes of rest, 25 minutes of writing, five minutes rest, etc, etc, until eventual collapse.
What else helped?
- Support from my husband and friends, particularly my understanding workmates at the day job.
- Snacks. Lots of snacks. M&M’s, Cheetos, macadamia nuts, chocolate-coated hazelnuts. I will really need to do high-intensity interval training after this challenge!
- Having a relatively low target of 30K. 50,000 is the usual NaNo goal. But I knew November was going to be a busy month, so I gave myself a target I knew I could achieve.
- Craft books like Erika Kelly’s ‘Build-a-Book: A Prewriting Process‘. This one’s an excellent book to pick up before you start writing so you don’t get stuck.
- Stila Stay All Day foundation and concealer to hide my gradual transformation into a zombie.
- Music, of course! I can’t listen while I write; I get too distracted. But I do play a few tracks before and after a writing session for inspiration.
My playlist song for the final day of NaNo is ‘Xanadu’ by Olivia Newton-John. I was going to post ‘(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life’, from ‘Dirty Dancing’, which is the ultimate ‘finale to anything’ song, but I’ve not listened to ON-J all month! Shame! One of my life goals is to be able to sing this song without frightening the cats.
Did you take part in NaNoWriMo? What were your survival techniques? Do you have an ultimate movie/musical finale song?
Vanessa Barneveld - YA Author 