NaNoWriMo: Counts

Tomorrow you November novelists out there will hit the two-thirds month mark, which means time-wise you have about a week and a half to finish your 50K novel. Doesn't sound like a lot of time to complete a whole book, does it?

Perspective is a funny thing, and never more so than when you count things. That week-and-a-half you have left to finish your NaNo novel? Equals more time than you think. It's actually ten days, or 240 hours, or 144,000 minutes, or 8,640,000 seconds. Imagine if you could write one word every second; in the time you have left for NaNoWriMo you'd be able to finish 1,728,000 50K novels by November 30th (this assuming you did nothing but write a word each and every second for the next ten days.)

Fortunately you don't have to write 1,728,000 novels over the next ten days -- you have only to finish the one you've been working on all month. The other 1,727,999 novels can wait for another time. Don't you feel better now?

All kidding aside, I know how hard you NaNo'ers have been working, how tired you're probably feeling, and how much you dread/long for November 30th to arrive. It's okay to panic for a minute when you think about the time you have left, too. But just remember, every minute from now until November 30th is not just something you count; it's also a window. You can sit and stare at it, or you can open it and let the words stream in, and put them down on paper, and finish the book, and win NaNoWriMo. It is not impossible; you can do it. Count on yourself and you will.