Good morning! Got your coffee? Got your word count started? How is #NaNoWriMo going? I know two of those questions are tricky and I totally feel you.
But you’re halfway there!
When your mind is shot, your fingers are tired, and your characters are milling around like people waiting for the main event, you’re halfway to the finish line.
I know that doesn’t sound great as there’s still as much ahead as there is behind, but you’re closer to the finish line and that’s a lot. But it’s 2020 and that makes everything harder. Believe me, I know.
I had to figure out a way to get my word count goals that wouldn’t totally burn me out. Because I want to keep this up when there’s no #NaNoWriMo energy out there egging me on.
I’m a big fan of flash fiction. Not only is it a way to practice writing short, it also tightens up my writing. In flash fiction, there’s a limited amount of words to get the story across and no space to waste them on filler words like “just”, “was”, and “that”. Each entry is often anywhere from 100 words to 500, but it’s not a lot of story.
I figured if I can write a flash fiction piece (about 200 words) I’d only need 8 of those to hit the minimum word count for #NaNoWriMo, and I could count them down by checking my word count. It made it a lot easier to hit my goal.
What tricks have you figured out to get to your goal and keep writing?