3 Tips to Help You Perservere Through the Middle of November

All through National Novel Writing Month, published authors will take the whistle, take over our official Twitter account for a week, and act as your NaNo Coach. This week’s NaNo Coach, Heidi Heilig, has some advice to help you through the middle-of-the-month blues:

Here we are, Wrimos.

Muddling through the mucky, murky middle of it all.

I’ve only been coaching a few days, but I’ve already seen a trend: loss of motivation, burn out, confusion–even despair. A lot of Wrimos are unsure they’ll be able to make their goals. It’s a terrible feeling, but so common, and for so many reasons: All the early energy has worn off, and yet we’re still so far from the end. People are looking at their novels and asking “What happens next? What do we do? How do we move forward?”

If you are struggling right now, I have some advice:

1. Take care of yourself.

If you’ve been going hard for a while, you might not have taken time to take care of yourself. Please do so now. When things seem so urgent–especially if you’ve fallen behind on your word count–it’s hard to step back and claim time for you. But it doesn’t do any good to sit and stare at the screen. Make sure you are rested. Make sure you’ve had water and food. Take a long walk, a hot bath, read a short story or a poem, or watch a movie or an episode of your favorite show. You have my permission–my encouragement–to take time to breathe.

2. Remember your joy.

After you’ve rested, eaten, and hydrated, I want you to remember your joy. Think back to those early days, when you were excited to start writing. Remember how you looked at your world–at your characters–at your manuscript in the first week of November. What did you dream for them? What part of the story interested you most? What were the scenes you looked forward to writing? In books you admire, what parts do you best love to reread? Remember that joy and hold it close. Let it remind you what you’re writing for.

3. Make a plan. 

Before you sit down to write, envision what you’ll do next. Set a goal–your goals can be vague (“Just type stream of consciousness until I make my word count!”) or specific (“Character X sits down to dinner with Character Y and talks about plans to Z.”) What’s important about this goal is to be able to work towards it, and to know when it’s accomplished.

After all that? Sit down and open your manuscript. Because when the going gets tough, the tough get going, and even though we’re all in the middle of this, at least we’re all in it together.

Heidi Heilig is the author of the YA historical fantasy The Girl From Everywhere and the sequel, The Ship Beyond Time. She holds an MFA from NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. She is bipolar, biracial, and pansexual, and enjoys surprise twist endings.