This year, I really leaned in with the idea of “block scheduling.” This practice is basically where you “block out” certain hours of your day to commit to an activity before you more onto something else. Each block is supposed to last only 1.5-2 hours. Sounds like micromanaging to some people, but I would rearrange my “writing block” depending on what I had going on for that day.
Anyway, I knew I needed to set aside two hours’ worth of time to work on my NaNo daily, so I usually blocked out those hours in the evening (which is nothing new). I made it very clear to my family that I needed that time to write, so if they wanted me to do something with or for them in the day, it had to happen before I started to write.
This system worked quite well for me. There were 4-5 days in November, though, where I would write an hour after midnight, so I didn’t have to write so much later in the day (and it still counted toward my word count). I was just very busy during those days, and I didn’t want the added stress of trying to cram two straight hours of writing in between everything else.
I wrote every day. Also, I decided early on in the month that I had to write at least 1700 words/day instead of the typical 1667 words/day. Because apparently I still like to be ambitious with my writing. [insert eye roll here]
In the end, I finished NaNoWriMo with a total of 53,061 words. Not only did I win for the fifth year in row (half a decade!), but I beat my record from last year by 843 words.
(Ignore the word count total at the top. When I went to validate my novel on their website, it tacked on extra words to my NaNo. I go by the number that my Word document tells me.)
Here’s a graph that displays my daily word count rather than an accumulation:
As you can see, I really didn’t have to write so much on that last day. Especially since I had already reached 50k the day before. However, after I got my 1700 words in for the day, I noticed how close I was to 53k, and I made it my goal to hit it. I also had a pretty busy day on November 30, so guess whose after-midnight writing helped carry her to the finish line?
My average writing time was 1 hour, 46 mins. Surprisingly, I never wrote beyond two hours. Although, on November 2 + 3, I was one minute shy of writing the full two hours.
I ended writing eight stories during the month. Literally half of them were in the fantasy genre, so I guess I was just in the mood to write fantasy. Ten days was the most I spent writing on one story – which was a manuscript idea I had tinkered with last year but never really sat down and wrote more than 700 words for. Unfortunately, two of the stories I had left unfinished before I moved onto the next one. I just hit a road block with the plot, and I lost interested in taking the time to figure out how to end it properly.
So overall, this year’s NaNoWriMo went very well. I made a new record, I wrote every day, and I didn’t feel like I was scrambling for the majority of the month, trying to come up with something to write. I think I got some sleep, too. And here I was on Halloween, anxious about how I was going to tackle my NaNo this year. How silly of me.
As usual, here’s my annual grainy photo from my webcam with me and my lovely Winner’s Certificate.
P.S. I feel like I should get a bonus point for also writing a poem early in November. Second one this year, so I guess I’m good now until 2019, lol.
P.P.S. I spent the entire month listening to a wide variety of Sufjan Stevens songs every day. I feel like I need to acknowledge him for keeping me so focused and motivated while writing. Thanks, Subaru.
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