Can you believe that you’re in that final stretch already? It feels like November just started yesterday! The month goes by so fast when you’re working hard on something! There’s more than just writing, as I’ve mentioned in the past, and so I want to keep going along the same lines as the previous post. There’s some “cleaning house” to do at this point in the month.
When you hit the halfway point, I talked about how you needed to readjust your milestone goals and think about what you need to do on the matter of word count goals. That’s the biggest one, right, because the word count goal is the challenge of the month! There’s other stuff that goes hand-in-hand with that, but for your mental and emotional health reasons, it’s best not to do all of the house keeping at the same time. It’ll get overwhelming and tedious, and it may derail your project entirely if you get lost in those details.
So now that you’re on the 20th/21st/22nd day, take some time to make sure you update your soundtrack. Give it some new flare and shuffle the order around a bit so that you’re listening to it in a new way. Make sure you’re updating your word counts on the Nanowrimo page, identifying and giving yourself the badges on your profile, and share about the progress you’ve made with your trusted contacts or on social media! Maybe also confirm that you are, in fact, still alive and still well (ish).
It’s also important to refresh your workspace. Retail stores do this all the time. It’s very rare for you to walk into a clothing shop and see brand new clothes. They get new stock, but it’s not as many items as you think. Most stores get 3-5 new items per week in each department, and so they “refresh” the displays by changing what they put together and putting a spotlight on the newest-coolest fashion trends. There’s no reason that philosophy can’t work for your safe place, your work zone, and I 100% believe you need to apply that logic right now. It’s the home stretch! You need all the hype and positivity you can find, and this is a huge way to make that impact. It is productive to the project but gives you a small break from writing, too.
For me, I did the bulk of my writing at home, usually in my home office. In fact, my home office gets used the most when I’m doing length projects that require lots of my daily attention. Nanowrimo is one such project, as you know or as you are learning. This meant rotating my candles out, cleaning out trash, clearing the clutter off the edges of the desk top, and reorganizing the scene of lego characters I have lined up in front of my printer. It was a new visual and felt like a complete fresh space. To take it one step further, I even changed the fuzzy socks I kept in my office and where I placed my heater. I felt like I was in a whole new room!
And it made an impact on my brain. This felt like a new space, so I felt like I was in a new frame of mind. As we often hear in our day-to-day lives, we need a change of scenery. Shaking things up every so often keeps things interesting. Your working space is no exception!
There are other little things you can do to “refresh” and “clean house” at this time of the month, but I really think these are the most helpful and satisfying ones to address. If you’re feeling particularly froggy, maybe you can put some time into making a free book cover. I used Adobe Spark, which is a free resource that utilizes stock images, and I was very pleased with the book covers I made. Two of my writing friends also utilized this resource for their Nanowrimo projects as well as fanfiction pieces. It’s a wonderful option, but there are dozens that you are able to utilize other than that one. Doing this can make everything feel more official, so it could be good for your brain, your heart, and your creative soul.
So – I hope you’re doing well on your projects. Please feel free to share with me where you’re at and how you’re doing. I know it can be intimidating to have a conversation in the comments, but I promise I’m not scary. The “it’s more scared of you than you are of it” philosophy applies to me as well.
Take care of yourself, and I’ll be back in a few days with some last-minute advice before the deadline strikes!
Be well ❤
ab
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