It doesn’t take much to finish

NaNoWriMo is two months away. You know the drill: 50,000 words in 30 days. That comes in at 1,667 words per day. It’s a daunting task for both new and experienced writers. I’ve done it twice and will probably do it again in a few years when the kids are older.

But for now, I’ve got to work on smaller projects and focus more on long-term goals.

And that’s the beauty part of writing. You can pick your own pace. Being able to write 50,000 words in a month doesn’t make you any better than someone writing 5,000 words a month. Writing needs to be a priority, but that doesn’t mean you can’t adapt your writing to fit in with your lifestyle.

Sure I say you need to give things up to focus on writing. But there are things that you can’t give up. Family, the day job, and exercise, for example are three things that have to take a higher priority than writing for me. I’ve also got Theme of Absence, 52 Dragons, and my Ebay side-hustle.

We’re all different and we all have things to do beside writing.

So how do you keep writing through all the madness?

Break things down.

It really doesn’t take much to keep a regular writing schedule.

Look at it this way. Say you want to write a short story this month. Can you do it? I’m going to say you should be able to do it with no problems at all. In fact, I’m going to say you only need fifteen minutes a day to do it.

Think about the last time you forced yourself to write fiction. I mean really forced yourself. You closed your web browser, locked the door, and did nothing but write. How many words did you get done in a hour? A thousand? 2000? More?

Whatever the number, if you could do that for just fifteen minutes a day, you would no doubt have a first draft of a short story (or two) by the end of the month.

Even if you only push out 100 words in 15 minutes, that’s still 3000 words, which is the maximum words I accept at Theme of Absence.

So what are you waiting for? Don’t complain that you don’t have time or that you can’t write 2000 words a day. Just shut up, sit down, set a timer, and write what you can.

And then eventually, you’ll be writing “The End”.

Have any tips for reaching “The End” when you don’t have a lot of time to write? Share them in the comments section!