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How I Wrote 50k Words in 13 Days

Have you ever written 50,000 words in 30 days? How about 13 days?

Here are 5 changes I made to my daily schedule that allowed me to reach my NaNoWriMo goal two weeks ahead of time.

The goal of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, is to challenge yourself to write 50,000 words in 30 days during the month of November.

To some, that is a feasible challenge that simply requires more dedication and more writing time.

To others, that’s an extreme challenge that makes you want to cry.

I know the feeling.

I struggle with time management, and I’m a rather slow writer. For me, 50k words in one month seems like an unachievable goal.

And yet this time around? I somehow managed to write those 50k words in only 13 days by making 5 simple changes to my daily routine during November.

The concept of calendar blocking isn’t anything new or world changing, and I’d even previously tried implementing it into my schedule to no avail.

So what is calendar blocking? It’s marking off a period of time in your daily schedule to get a certain category of activities done. It can be half an hour, two hours, or however long you need to accomplish your work, errands, or hobbies.

The key is to make time blocking work for you.

All I knew going into NaNoWriMo was that I wanted to make more time for writing, aiming for a consistent and reliable daily writing habit.

So I took out my paper planner and highlighted sections of my days that were already filled with other events. Those were out.

Then I made a list of tasks I needed to do every day, keeping my weekly goals in mind. I scheduled time to clean and do laundry. I scheduled time for running errands.

That left me with a pretty good idea of what hours I had available to write, which were mostly in the evenings on weekdays with more time available on weekends.

And so I blocked off 2 to 4 hours every evening for writing. This was the first addition to my schedule that helped me write 50k words.

But how did I actually follow through with my calendar blocking when it had previously failed me?

My new favorite writing thing. I didn’t think sprints were for me, where you sit down for a set period of time and write as many words as you can. But they really, really are for me.

Through experimenting with word sprints, I did learn that I average the same amount of words in shorter sprints that I do on longer sprints. This means that 15 minutes word sprints are my sweet spot. And this means I can also average about 1k words in an hour, so the 2 to 4 hours I write every evening means 2k to 4k words written. I call that a win in itself.

So how do you work with word sprints? The most common method is the Pomodoro Technique, which is usually a focused period of 20 to 25 minutes followed by a short break of 5 to 10 minutes, then another focused period. After a few focused periods, you get a longer break.

Then you start the cycle all over again until the blocked off time in your calendar is done.

If you are dedicated you can use a phone app like Forest that will also help grow trees during the time you spend off your phone focused on another task.

But I find I need more structure when I’m on my own, so on my Mac laptop I use the app Be Focused. It’s basically the Pomodoro Technique, but you can set your own focused periods, your short breaks, and your long breaks.

You can also set goals to reach within the app, say for tracking how many sprints it takes you to finish writing a chapter.

Overall, this Be Focused app saved me a lot of time and effort by streamlining the word sprint process.

But all writers know that writing is solitary work, so it can get lonely. I tend to lose motivation when I’m on my own with only myself to be accountable to.

That’s where my next daily addition comes in.

NaNoWriMo has a Twitter account where they run writing sprints throughout the day. That’s one way to write with others and let them know your word count for each sprint.

Other options are Instagram and Youtube where many people host live writing sprints.

Instagram is fairly new for me, but the more I use it, the more I love it. Using the Stories feature to update friends and followers on your progress is a great motivation tool. But on top of that is hosting Live for up to an hour at a time.

If you follow the writing community on IG, you can find people with Live schedules for their writing sprints. I added those to my daily planner so if any of them worked out for me at a time when I was free, I would watch and participate.

But my favorite of these live writing sprints are on Youtube. NaNoWriMo has their live streams for writing sprints, but so do many in the writing community dubbed authortube.

Whether a larger channel or a smaller channel, there is always someone hosting word sprints each day. Participating and reporting my word count to the hosts and the other watching writers helps keep me accountable and makes me write even when I don’t always feel like it.

I even branched out to host my own live streams on IG and Youtube! It’s nerve-wracking, but it’s also super motivating.

Getting the chance to talk about writing with other writers while also getting in my word count goal for the day? It quickly became my favorite part of NaNoWriMo this year.

I like writing with friends online so much that I’m going to continue participating in these live streams when NaNoWriMo is over.

And if you have a local writing group to join for meetups, I highly suggest participating, or even hosting your own. Writing with an in-person group is also fun because getting together at a coffee shop or the library to write and talk craft is awesome.

But if you don’t like the face-to-face meetups, I recommend the many online options to keep up motivation and hold yourself accountable for making your word count goals.

While looking at online options for staying motivated, let’s also look at the next addition to my daily schedule.

I know, I’m talking ridiculous here. But in order to make the time block for writing most effective, I needed to limit my internet access.

If I wasn’t joining an online sprinting session, I limited my access to Spotify to listen to my writing playlists.

No updating Twitter or Instagram until I was done writing for the day. No researching down a rabbit hole of web pages.

Just writing and music. That’s it. No other distractions.

…Except for when there were distractions. The next addition to my daily schedule is perhaps the most important aspect I learned for this NaNoWriMo.

When you set up your block of writing time, it’s imperative to let people know not to disturb you.

Granted, many of us have families and other responsibilities outside of writing, but maybe arrangements can be made so that you have at least some uninterrupted writing time.

Because if writing is important to you, you need to make time for it.

And if writing is important to you, it should be important to the people in your life as well. Tell them when you’re writing and ask that you not be disturbed during that time.

So even if you need to write before everyone else in the house wakes up, or after they’re all asleep, just make sure you set your time and write those words.

It’s not always doable for everyone, but trying to write is better than not writing at all.

Okay, so. I wrote 50k words in 13 days. What exactly did I manage to write?

I’m always a NaNo rebel, which means I’m usually not starting a completely new draft when I participate in NaNoWriMo. But I do keep meticulous track of my word metrics in all of my projects.

On day 13, I was fitted for my cervical collar and visited two other doctors. The day was long and painful.

But I came home in the evening and cohosted live writing sprints on Youtube to get my word count in. I wrote a little over 3,000 words, which ended up being all I needed.

In under two weeks, I completed a 15k word novella which is a prequel to my current work in progress (WIP) and continued revising and rewriting my WIP for draft 2.5.

50k words is a lot to write in such a short period of time. I don’t know if it would happen for me again even if I aimed for this goal. Hopefully if I stick with my current schedule, I’ll be able to be this productive every month of the year.

For the rest of NaNo, I’m still working and writing, and I don’t know what my end word count will be. Some people are aiming for 100k words. Maybe I’ll join them in reaching for that goal.

But for now? I’m just glad I finished NaNoWriMo.

If you’re participating in NaNo, I wish you luck.

If you’re writing on your own this month, I wish you luck.

Either way, what writing project are you working on? And what are your goals for the rest of the year?

Have you implemented any of these helpful hacks to make writing easier? Do you have any writing hacks of your own that you swear by?

In my next series of posts, I’ll be discussing what I learned from NaNoWriMo, what I would change about NaNoWriMo, and even alternatives to NaNoWriMo if the challenge just doesn’t work for you.

If that’s something you’re interested in, follow Writ in Water to be updated on my new posts.

Until we meet again, happy writing!

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