Don’t Give up on NaNoWriMo Yet

So it’s not going the way you wanted — there’s a lot of November left

Every year, writers everywhere crack open their laptops, flex their fingers, and attack their keyboards during the entire month of November, hoping to finally finish (or start, or write a big chunk of) their novel.

The NaNoWriMo acronym/abbreviation stands for “National Novel Writing Month.” It’s an event, but it’s also a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and the goal of the month (as supported by that corresponding organization), is that followers create a 50,000-word novel in 30 days.

What an exciting month! What an exciting challenge! You’ve mentally signed on and you’re ready to type!

Except, one day, you realize it’s already November 15.

How does a person’s NaNoWriMo go off track?

Writing your novel is a great idea and you should totally do it. But you’re also probably a person with a job and a family and responsibilities and, because we’re all human, an immune system that may or may not be ready for the start of cold and flu season.

There was the day you had to work late and you couldn’t do much writing. There was the day your spouse had to go to help their parents and you had to make supper. Then there were the couple of days you were trying not to come down with a cold, and you decided you needed the sleep more than you needed to pursue the dream. Last, but not least, there were those days when your kid came down with the cold you missed, only it turned out to be RSV and they felt terrible for a week.

Such is life.

Even if you haven’t started your November strong, there’s still plenty of time for a big finish. Here are four ways to salvage the remaining two weeks of your NaNoWriMo:

Change the goal

During September and October, people make big plans to pound out an entire novel (or at least 50,000 cohesive words of one). They may even prepare by outlining a plot, writing character studies, or doing other prep work so they can end November with a finished (or finished-ish) product.

I’m not going to lie to you. If you haven’t written anything by November 15, you’d have to pound out more than 3,300 words a day to get to 50,000 by November 30. That’s a pretty tall order.

So the place to start to simultaneously let yourself off the hook and inspire yourself to two weeks of creativity is to change your goal. Don’t focus on the whole novel. How about making your goal a complete, well-thought-out outline for your story? List plot points by chapter. Decide what you want the first chapter to look like and the end chapter to say.

You can still write for a word limit. Your goal can be anything: It can be writing 15,000 words. It can be writing a certain amount of words every day. It can be doing complete character studies of all your main characters. Make the new goal, and get on it.

Write short stories

This is another way of saying, change the goal.

We all love novels, but they’re not the end-all, be-all of all human creative endeavors. Furthermore, many novels and movies have started life as short stories.

Instead of demanding of yourself that you write a novel, or as much of a novel as you can, commit to writing one or two really good short stories in your remaining two weeks. Or write one story and use some days to edit it. Use another day or two to research where you could submit them for publication.

Write something nonfiction

Yes, I know the “No” in the NaNoWriMo acronym stands for “novel.” But have you considered that it could also stand for “nonfiction”?

If you’re a writer, WRITE something. Even if you feel you no longer have the time to devote to a longer novel project or a complete short story, try something different, like a personal or literary essay, or even poetry. You might be surprised to find out how satisfying it is to write haiku.

You could also use this time to develop the proposal and pitch-writing aspect of your writing craft. Think of the novel you want to write, and try to tell its story in an “elevator pitch” (a short summary that can be explained to someone in thirty seconds, or 150 words, or less). Dream a little. When you get something published, what do you want your author bio to say? Write that and then, even when November is over, work toward making it happen.

Do something new for your writing self

In addition to investigating the NaNoWriMo nonprofit site for other offerings they have at different times during the year, you could also use November to develop your writing skills in a way you never have before.

Take this November to try something new — drop in on a creative writing group at the library. Ask some friends to a one-off book group to learn more about how readers talk about books. Treat yourself to a couple of actual writing magazines from your local bookstore, and learn something new. Check out a book on writing from the library — a classic like Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg or a straightforward how-to like Save the Cat Writes a Novel — and read it, cover to cover.

There are endless ways to learn and grow as a writer, and there’s no better time than now to start.

The one thing you can’t do, even if your November is rushing by, is quit. Even if you get to November 30, and you haven’t written a thing, remember there’s no law that December (or January, or February…) can’t be your own personal NoWriMo.

But you have to start somewhere. Write something. Write anything.

You can do it!