Diet, Exercise, and NaNoWriMo

These days, I’m making an effort to take better care of myself: making sure I eat right, stay active, and do things that keep my creative mind engaged. In the last year, I’ve lost nearly 100 pounds, downloaded six different workout regimens, and written a novel.

When you make a huge life change, everyone wants to know how you did it. Substantial life change is really hard, and seeing someone be successful at it gives other people hope that if they do the same thing, they, too, will be successful. And yet, the proliferation of diet programs, fitness programs, and creativity boosters attest to the fact that there isn’t a single right answer for everyone.

I’ve won NaNoWriMo sixteen years of the eighteen I’ve participated. When I started, I had two small children and a full-time job. During various Novembers, I’ve attended funerals, lost and found jobs, moved house, traveled. And yes, I did finish. When people complain to me that they don’t have the time, I tell them that they do — they just don’t see it.

Back when I was still working an office job, I wrote in bits and snatches all day. If the meeting I was in got boring, I wrote. If I was taking a break, I wrote. I wrote while on the phone, while waiting for the copier to be free, instead of eating lunch. When I got home, I wrote while waiting for the water to boil, while balancing a baby on my lap, while sitting in a rocking chair in the room of the child who wanted me to stay until she fell asleep. It’s surprising how these 5–10 minute bursts of writing add up.

In her Master Class on short story writing, Joyce Carol Oates gives the advice to set a very short time limit for writing. When you know you only have a few minutes, you’ll write furiously to get it all down. It helps that when you’re thinking about your story all day every day, it’s easy to keep the flow going. You don’t have to go back and read over what you’ve written, trying to remember where you left off and what your characters are going to do next.

But just like sticking to a diet and making time to exercise, the very first challenge of writing is paying attention to the choices you make. So — three cheese omelette and sausage, or fat free yogurt and pineapple? Half an hour more of sleep, or taking the dog out for a run? Fifteen minutes of Animal Crossing, or six hundred more words? Just because November is over doesn’t mean your writing is done.

Keep going! Finish that story! Start on the next one!

You can do this.