What to Do if You Fall Behind on NaNoWriMo Early

Welcome to November, the month where millions of books are abandoned mid-sentence because the writer knows they won’t hit the magic word count by the end of the month. You’ve set the writing goal. You know the daily steps to take to get there. But, life happens, you don’t accomplish those daily steps, and you’re behind on the goal early in the game. Is it time to pack it in?

NaNoWriMo or other writing challenges always start with a flourish. We’re excited to dedicate time to write or finally finish that book we’ve been working on. We get a few days in and our word counts drop or we *gasp* miss an entire day of writing because we’re busy with other things. Reaching the end goal, whether it’s 50k words or something else, seems impossible now. Another year wasted. Another NaNoWriMo or challenge failed. Right?

Wrong. Look, I have been in those bleak, early days and there have certainly been challenges and NaNo years that I’ve abandoned midway through. Consistency is not exactly my middle name so I get behind, my dog-in-a-park-full-of-squirrels brain finds shiny new ideas to think about, I procrastinate by cleaning every available surface, and I find myself doing everything but what I wanted to do. But, that doesn’t mean that we have to pack in the goal just because we might be a little 0ff-center on our early aim. So, what do we do if our challenges and NaNo get off to a less-than-stellar start?

Writing is Rarely Linear

Writing can be a messy business. I’m sure there are people out there for whom writing happens cleanly and consistently and precisely every single day. For the rest of us? It’s messy. Writing doesn’t happen at the same speed or intensity all of the time for most of us. We may write more on some days, less on others, and even none on given days. We may have places in our work where we write more slowly and some where we’ll write quicker. We write some types faster and some genres slower. We have spaces that require us to step back and think out a problem and others where we sail through the words on the page.

All of that is to say that if your NaNoWriMo or challenge started more slowly than you wanted, you may find your wind later on. I’ve been writing long enough, for example, that I know that beginnings are hard and I write more slowly. I eek out the words and it’s sometimes painfully slow. As I get further in and closer to deadlines, it picks up because I’ll find the narrative, voice, and points needed to complete the project. Even in this blog post, it took me three times as long to write the beginning sentences as it has to write these sentences and by the time I get to the end, words will be flying out.

If you started slow and think it’s all over, try reframing that thought. Maybe that slow start or non-start wasn’t ideal, but you may very well pick up speed or have needed that slower start to think about what you’re doing.

Writing Isn’t Just Words on the Page

NaNoWriMo is focused on words, but the reality is that a lot of writing happens around our words. I love the term “writing adjacent” for this because there are so many activities that are writing work, but we don’t think of them as writing work because they aren’t words.

Did you spend time thinking about your project? Did you research or edit or do a lot of procrastinating while that idea was bouncing around in your brain? Writing adjacent work. You got work done; it just may not always look as productive as words on the page. The truth is, though, that all of this work is just as important and it’s often the work that people miss when they are thinking about writing.

If you’re doing writing adjacent work and it’s not showing up in the word count, it’s still progress and it’s still important. Rather than focus on word count, focus on hours spent on the project or another measure that lets you make progress in a way that’s meaningful for you.

Know Your Writing Process

I love challenges like NaNo, but they don’t really suit my writing process at all. Particularly for fiction writing, I need lots of time to think and mull and work the story out in my head before words ever hit the page. Yet, like so many others, I still cling to the belief that if I can just figure it out, I can write 10,000 words a day, finish NaNo in five, and be published by the end of the month. After all, that’s what all those write a book in a month challenges, courses, books, and programs mean, right?

We all have different writing processes and needs based on our personalities, situations, and experiences. The more that you learn to honor YOU in the process, the better and easier the writing will go. You don’t have to be able to write like the person next to you. You just have to be able to write like you and sometimes that means challenges like NaNo aren’t ideal for you. That doesn’t mean that you have to quit, but it does mean that it’s ok to give yourself some grace and acknowledge that it’s not ideal for your personal writing process.

You might find that there are aspects of NaNo or other challenges that work for you, while other parts don’t. Keep the stuff that works and don’t get shook by the stuff that doesn’t. I find writing sprints helpful and they are abundant and easy to find during NaNo. I take advantage of that, but don’t worry so much if I don’t meet that magical word count because I know that I need thinking time and time to keep the creative well filled.

Writing Progress is Writing Progress; Don’t Knock It

So you got off to a slower than desired start? So you might finish your book in December instead of November? In five years, what will matter: that you did it in a month or that you did it at all?

If you’re making progress toward your goal, keep at it. Your pace is your pace. While trying to conform to an outside challenge or NaNo word goal can be fun, what really matters is that you put the time in and you’re making progress on your goal.

I know the temptation is to say “I can’t make the goal, so why bother?” I’ve been there. But, even if you only make some of the progress toward the goal that you wanted, you still made progress, which is more than a lot of people can say. If it’s early and you don’t think you’re going to meet the original goal, you can always reassess the goal for something more manageable or just continue on and see whether you can pull it off. Either way, you make progress and you move further toward finishing your writing project.

It’s 2020

Life always throws stuff at us when we are least expecting it. 2020 has thrown more than it’s share. While some people are able to thrive and work through all the chaos and trauma, it can be a huge struggle for other people. If you’re someone who is feeling some of that trauma, it’s ok to acknowledge that this year isn’t normal and it’s been full of really bad stuff than didn’t stop on October 31.

In other words, be kind to yourself. Practice self-care and do what you can. Maybe NaNo or other writing challenges aren’t ideal for you this year. That’s ok. Maybe a smaller goal or just focusing on the pieces of NaNoWriMo that work for you will help you make some progress. Go for it. 2020 made up it’s own rules so you can too!