NaNoWriMo Pep Talk: There’s no such thing as too far behind

Every year I end up telling at least a few people about my friend Elmore. That’s author Elmore Hammes aka thekanapolisfog over on the NaNoWriMo site if you want to buddy him. He’s not only written MANY books and short stories, he’s also won every single NaNo since 2003. I asked him to pop by to write up this week’s pep talk but it’s actually not for any of the reasons I just mentioned.

It’s because, every November, Elmore goes on a 2 week long volunteer mission trip where he has very little access to modern comforts let alone tools or time for writing. He writes a little bit of his novel before he leaves and then writes 90 to 95% of his novel in the last week when he returns to the US. At the moment that I’m posting this, his word count is 8,013 but, mark my words, he’ll still finish on time. Every year it’s like this and I think, oh dear, Elmore’s not going to finish this year and every. freaking. year. he still comes back and writes almost the entire book in the final week.

I asked Elmore to come over because I wanted you to understand: There is truly no such thing as too far behind in NaNoWriMo. You can, and people do every year, write the entire 50,000 words in a single day if you put your mind to it. You may not have been building houses in Mexico for half the month but, whatever your reasons, being behind is no reason to quit. You can, absolutely, still reach 50,000 words at this point.

Let me turn it over to Elmore:

What’s that? You’re behind on your word count? It’s November 21, and you are supposed to be at 35,000 words and you’re only at 20,000? Pshaw, I say. That’s right, I said pshaw. That’s just a normal NaNoWriMo for me, or it has been the last couple years. Oh sure, the first time or two I did NaNoWriMo, I toed the line with the typical 1,700 words a day, keeping a nice, smooth pace, but where’s the fun in that? If you want the full-flavored, high-octane experience, there’s nothing like rushing at a mad-cap pace to the finish line, knowing you need to hit 10,000 words on the last day.

Oh, it’s not for the faint of heart, I’ll grant you that. But there really is a magical turning point, or there has been for me, when the momentum of the first 25 or 30k seems to snowball your writing forward, and you push out 1,000 or more words in half hour spurts. So don’t lose heart, regardless of how late in the game it is or how paltry your word count seems. Lock that internal editor away, keep the fingers typing no matter what. Set little rewards like going to the bathroom if you just get another 1k in, or breathing after another sentence is completed. And before you know it, what had been a demonic word counter will suddenly sprout wings as you pass 50,000 words.

A big thank you to Elmore for stopping by when he, clearly, should be working on his novel. 😉 You can check out Elmore’s website here. Below are just a few of his available works.