NaNo Trick or Treat: The Daily Progress Blog

Everybody knows that Tumblr loves Halloween, and that Halloween heralds the start of NaNoWriMo! To get into the holiday spirit, we’ve asked Wrimos from around the world to share the best “trick” and best “treat” they know to help themselves reach 50K in November. Today, participant Joseph V. Carusone shares his trick and treat advice:

It seems to me that the only things more difficult than writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days are child birth, climbing Mount Everest, and watching a presidential debate without screaming at the television set. Therefore, any hopeful NaNoWriMo participant must find new and creative ways of tricking and treating themselves into writing the requisite 1,667 words per day.

Trick:

A trick I used last year during my first NaNoWriMo endeavor was to create a blog in which I would chronicle my daily progress. Each day I would post a blog entry that tracked the amount of words I accumulated, detailed the physical location where I wrote (ie. my desk at home, the local library, a cafe, etc.) and recounted any interesting anecdotes about how my writing went. 

The point of the blog was not only to document the NaNoWriMo process for my friends, family and fellow writers, but, more importantly, to shame me into writing each and every day. Skipping a day of writing during November and consequently running the risk of falling catastrophically behind is a dangerous thing in itself; but skipping a day of writing and THEN having to create a blog post advertising my complete and utter lack of writing was a highly embarrassing prospect. 

I still remember several nights in which I was dangerously close to falling asleep on my couch with a nice warm blanket tucked up under my chin as the din of a football game droned on in the background, when, just as my eyelids were about to succumb to gravity, I remembered the blog. I envisioned the horrible feeling of creating a post that said something like, “Last night I wrote 0 words, therefore I am falling behind, behind, behind and will never catch up. Woe is me. Woe is me!” This thought prompted me to get off the couch and stumble to my computer to knock out some words just to avoid the embarrassment of that overly dramatic and awkward blog post. 

Now don’t get me wrong; there were some days where I simply did not produce any words, and those nights I was forced to create one of those embarrassing blog posts stating that I only wrote 100 words, or 60 words, or 0 words, but I can guarantee that the days in which I did not write 1,667 words were significantly fewer due to the specter of a humiliating blog post hanging over my head.

Treat:

In this case, the treat is the result of the trick. You trick yourself into writing and the treat is the unparalleled sense of satisfaction that comes with hitting “submit” and posting news of your success to the whole world (or, more accurately, your five blog readers that all share your last name). 

Now, you might not want to create your own blog, and that’s ok. The same effect can be achieved by forcing yourself to keep a daily journal in which you track your daily output, or by telling a loved one how important it is that you write every day and then keeping them abreast of your daily word count. Having someone to hold you accountable as you write–whether it’s your internet community, your best friend, your mom, or even yourself–is a great way to keep on track to reach 50K by the end of November.

Joseph V. Carusone is a 33-year-old writer from Albany, NY, who spends too much time watching sports on TV, reads too many online articles about Star Wars, and has become an expert on playgrounds thanks to his 3-year-old son. Joseph is currently in the process of polishing the third draft of the novel he wrote for NaNoWriMo 2015. Read his blog The Sinister Scheme of Phalanxes at www.TheSinisterScheme.com and follow him on Twitter @JosephVCarusone.

Top photo by Flickr user Thomas Hawk.