You need to write to win

Here's a shocker - you need to write to win.

No matter how desperate the circumstances, you need to turn up every night, and hit your target for the day. You might be aiming for 1,667 every day, or 2,000 a day, or whatever. But you need to know how much you are going to write and you need to make sure you do it. This may mean not watching TV, or not talking to your partner, or staying up until 3am.

Tough.

If you don't hit that target, you fall behind. And if you let yourself fall behind once, it becomes easier to fall behind again ... and again ... and then you realise you're a week behind, it is the second half of the month and you no longer care if you make it or not.

So, to avoid this, look ahead into November. Think: are there any days you aren't going to be able to write. Will you have visitors staying in November? Holidays booked? Parties, conferences out of town, other stuff that will keep you away from your keyboard?

If so, how many days will you lose and how many extra words will you have to write each day to make up for it? If you identify these hazards in advance, you can put in the extra words before hand. Because there is nothing worse than sinking in quicksand, except perhaps sinking in words. Quicksand will do it in a few minutes, Nanowrimo takes a whole month.