NaNo What Now?
On Finding Motivation to Write December through October
We’re now about a week into December, and if you participated in NaNoWriMo 2016, you’re either continuing to ride out the wave of motivation or nursing a NaNo hangover. If it’s the first — congrats! Keep it going (and send us all your secrets). If it’s the second — don’t worry. It’s normal to experience a little productivity / motivation fallout after working so fervently on one thing for a month straight.
Don’t get us wrong, NaNoWriMo touches on 3 main ingredients that are crucial to a good writing practice. To recap:
- It gets you started and/or keeps you writing.
- It gives you a goal to work towards (with a deadline!).
- It provides you with a supportive and enthusiastic community of writers.
There’s no doubt that these things boost motivation and productivity (hence the draw and success of NaNoWriMo).
But the fatal flaw of NaNoWriMo?
It’s only one month out of the year. We spend the month of November building momentum, developing a consistent (albeit aggressive) writing habit, and pushing ourselves to really work on our novel, and then…it’s over. Once November ends, there’s no plan. A lot of the NaNo hangover remedies out there are short-term solutions to a long-term problem. It’s not just about figuring out the next immediate thing to do following the end of November. It’s about taking those 3 key ingredients of NaNoWriMo and finding a way to integrate them into your daily writing life in a realistic and sustainable way.
We can help you with this! (By the way we provide writing coach services). Here’s how:
Getting started
You’ve probably already gotten started (so that hard part is done). But we can help you with the equally hard, if not harder part: keeping it going and getting to the finish line.
Goal and deadline setting
We’ll give you a specific goal to work towards (with deadlines) that is tailored to you and your life.
We think the “tailored to you and your life” part is crucial. Why? Because productivity and motivation thrive off of realistic and achievable goals. No person is just a writer. We all wear lots of hats and have lots of things going on — having writing goals and a plan that take those things into consideration greatly increase your chance of success (and general happiness along the way).
Community
You’ll get support from fellow novelists (did we mention you get automatically connected with a bunch of other writers?)…but more importantly you’ll get the support, encouragement, and guidance from a coach: a coach who is an experienced writer, a coach who takes the time to get to know you and your writing personally, a coach who genuinely cares about your success. The difference between a coach and a writer friend? A coach checks in with you, persistently, and offers guidance when you’ve fallen into a rut.
Make every month NaNo month (at a more reasonable pace) with a coach at OneRoom. You can learn more at joinoneroom.com/novel.
Kayla Quock graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in English Lit. and a minor in Education. She worked for the UCB Vice Chancellor for Equity & Inclusion before coming to work at OneRoom.
