How to Finish NaNoWriMo (for Nonfiction and Business Writers)

So you went into NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) with the best intentions, pens blazin’ and ready to write.

Well, isn’t that how we approach every big project?

Whether you were hoping to write a book, a bunch of blog posts, your website copy, a nurture sequence, or an email funnel promoting your next big thing, maybe one of a few things happened: 

1. You started off feeling good and making progress. You wrote every day for three days first thing each day, and then something got in the way — [insert your reason here — the dog got sick, the school was closed, your water heater broke.]

2. You missed a day, and then two, and three. 

3. Or, you wanted to start writing on November 1. You had a writing plan and even prepared with some new pens and candles to help you get in the writing mood.

Except the night before you planned on starting, you woke up at 2 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. You lay there awake until 6 a.m. when your alarm went off. 😭 How the hell are you supposed to focus on the responsibilities of your day, let alone book writing, when you can barely function without a pot of coffee? 

Whether you started strong or slept through the go-time horn, you can get back on the NaNo horse and cross the finish line with 50,000 words or more. 

This advice is timely for anyone in the middle of NaNoWriMo but also applies to any time of year where you’ve let the projects that you’ve considered to be important slide to the bottom of your to-do list.

Here are 4 simple ways to refocus on your NaNoWriMo projects:

1. Instead of a word count goal, consider a writing streak goal.
   Can you write 4 days a week for the rest of the month? Or could you write for 20 minutes a day on weekdays? Try to focus less on how long you wrote as long as you dedicated some time to writing that day.

2. Start right now — literally.
   Don’t procrastinate further by finishing the rest of this blog post. Set a timer for 25 minutes (a la Pomodoro method) and write as fast as you can for 25 minutes. No editing, judging, thinking, or criticizing. Move on with your day, and do it again tomorrow.

3. Consider a reward or series of rewards for hitting milestones.
   Rewards work! Maybe a bonus like this shower notepad (< affiliate link— I might earn a little moolah if you click and make a purchase) when you hit a specific word count — 5, 10, or 25,000 words. Or perhaps book a massage or night out on November 30 to celebrate not only your achievements but your effort and dedication.

4. Move the goalpost.
   NaNoWriMo is a made-up event in a made-up system of time that doesn’t matter. Change your goal to the end of the year, make a plan to write, add the time to your calendar, commit, and do it. 

I intentionally kept this list super small so that you can avoid the procrastination trap and get back to your writing project.

Creation is an act of surrender, and the more you can surrender, the easier it is to write. 

Surrender is where we find the flow state. 

If you can hold yourself accountable to a goal, regardless of its scope, you can know you showed up for yourself in the best way you could — even when life gets in the way.

When you’re fully surrendered, all those made-up ideas of why we can’t write fall away. There’s no writer’s block, resistance, or inner critic. 

2024 Update — I quit NaNoWriMo a few years ago.

Here’s why ⤵️