Friday, November 5, 2010

NaNoWriMo day five: tip of the day

Today is day five of nano, and I had a lot going on today. An assignment I had to finish, an interview to conduct, an appointment, a nap and the dance tonight. So, I fully expected to fall even further behind on my novel. However, I woke up early this morning (hence the nap) and got my other stuff done, so I splurged a little and spent time on nano and got my daily quota of words in after all. Sweet! It partly happened because I spread it out throughout the day--I did 500 this morning when I got up, another 500 or so when I needed a break from other stuff, then the rest of it when I finished my other tasks. I might go do a little more after posting this, but I'm pretty sleepy.

Here's my tip for the day: if you find you don't feel like writing, or you don't know what to write about, make yourself sit down and write just 100 words. 100 words is nothing! However, what happens to me is, I'll do my 100, but then I want to finish the sentence or even the paragraph and it become maybe 167. Then, I want to get to the next round number, so I decide to do a little more to hit 200. The next thing I know, I have 275, so I might as well go for 300. I did some of that today, and it got me through 1670 words when I wasn't sure I'd get more than 500. Even if you do stop at the 100, it's still more than you had before you sat down.

1 comment:

Saoirse said...

That's a great tip, Jennifer!!!

You are right, I'm one of those too who wants to reach the next round number ... and just a little more ... and then I'm amazed that the little paragraph I wrote had over 150 words lol