Congratulations, if you are still keeping up with NaNoWriMo you are entering the home stretch. For those who are keeping up with the daily goals, today you should be passing the 31,000 word mark – way to go!
If you are behind, don’t despair, don’t stop. There is still time to catch up. Find yourself a few undisturbed hours and crank out as much of the story as you can, remembering not to stop and edit. Your goal is to create a complete story, not Shakespeare.
Today we are going to talk about keeping momentum. If you have survived the first two weeks then you are doing well, but chances are you are starting to get tired of forcing the writing process day after day.
It’s the same with any project or goal – think New Year’s resolutions. The first week you are still motivated to see things to the end and have the energy to do so, you reach or even exceed your goals. The second week is when you start slipping and cheating a little, you still reach your goals or come very close but it’s harder. Here in the third week is when many people quit, either because they have fallen behind and don’t feel they can catch up, or they have simply run out of energy.
The third week has other challenges as well. In a 50,000 word book this is when the main character is starting to gear up to face the climax of the story. If you are plotting the key points of your story using the Hero’s journey as your template, your main character will be entering the part of the story when he must face daunting challenges that change his outlook and transform him so that he can face his final battle.
In Frozen, this is when Hans reveals his true sinister nature and Anna must find another way to survive. In Cars, this is when Lightning decides to stop being a jerk and do a good job fixing the road.
While this is tough writing, it is also rewarding because this is when the character goes from interesting to awesome.
So keep going! The work you do this week will be hard, I’m not going to lie, but it is definitely worth it. Identify how your main character must change, and place him into a scenario that forces the change to happen. Only 11 days to go, you can do it.
Nail it like Anna nailed Hans! [Gif created by nulty102 at deviantart.com
My Literary Quest 