Pro Tips from a NaNo Coach: Give Yourself a Break!

We’re nearing the halfway mark on NaNoWriMo, and whether you’re on par, full speed ahead, or feel like you’re falling behind, it’s important to remember to take care of yourself. Today, author and NaNo Coach Jasmine Guillory shares her thoughts on the importance of taking some time away from the page:

As
I write this, I’m in the middle of making soup. See, I wasn’t
sure exactly what to say to you all, and what would be best for you
to hear this week to help you through the hump of the third week of
NaNoWriMo. You all have been writing flat out for weeks now, and if
you’re anything like me, right around now is the time when you
might be hitting a few speed bumps.  You’ve hit that time when
the exciting beginning of the book, the part that you knew exactly
how to write, runs out, and you’re trying to figure out what comes
next. That’s a hard time.

I
was thinking of all of the writing advice I’ve gotten, and what to
tell you to encourage you to keep going, and I had no idea where to
start. So I took a break to make some soup. And I realized that’s
exactly what I need to talk to you all about: taking breaks, and how
creatively important and rejuvenating they are.

I
have had so many writing breakthroughs when I’ve been away from my
laptop. Sometimes, stepping away from the words on the screen is
exactly what you need. I wrote the first half of the first draft of
The Wedding Date, my debut novel, during Camp NaNo, and my story and
my characters were never far from my mind. But it was often when I
wasn’t actively working on the book when I had an epiphany about
it.

“The key is to give your mind a break from actively thinking about something, and give your subconscious the time and space to meditate on your story.”

What
should your break be? That depends on what works best for you.
Whether it’s cooking, or listening to music, or taking a shower, or
going for a run, or [fill in the blank], the key is to give your mind
a break from actively thinking about something, and give your
subconscious the time and space to meditate on your story. For me,
deciding to sleep on something often helped: that time right before
falling sleep, when my mind wanders, somehow makes everything click
for me.

Sometimes
things that feel like a waste of time can be a gift in the long run.
This summer, while working on a first draft, I procrastinated by
making a huge playlist of songs that made me think of my plot and my
characters. But at least a dozen times as I drove around listening to
the playlist, I said “Oh, that’s
what I need to do!” out loud. I’m not saying all procrastination
is good…but not all of it is bad, either.

Most
importantly: always have something with you so you can jot down your
stroke of genius! I’ve forced myself to wake up on countless
occasions so I could grab my phone and type out a few lines in the
Notes app so I wouldn’t forget my ideas in the morning (I learned
that the hard way). Have a dry erase board in your kitchen so you can
make notes while you cook, get one of those water proof note pads if
you’re a shower thinker, keep a tiny notebook in your back pocket,
do whatever you need to do.

Congratulations
on all that you’ve accomplished this month already! I just took a
look back at my word count spreadsheet from the first draft of The Wedding Date, and at this point in the month, I was running well
behind on word count, and I had no idea if I would make it to 50K by
the end of the month. But I believed in my book, and I was having a
ton of fun writing it, and I knew no matter how difficult certain
parts of the writing process were, I wanted to keep going.

I’m
cheering you on to write as many words as you can, and to take
writing breaks in order to refresh yourself and make your words the
best they can be.

Jasmine Guillory is lawyer and a writer who lives in Oakland, California. She has towering stacks of books in her living room, a cake recipe for every occasion, and upwards of 50 lipsticks. Her debut novel, The Wedding Date, comes out in February 2018.