Now that I’ve determined my word count, it is time to figure out my plan for writing each day.
Creating a daily plan is an essential part of having a successful NaNoWriMo. It keeps you on track, breaks your work into smaller steps, and can help push you to write more than you would have.
Creating a daily plan doesn’t even have to be very difficult. Let’s look at three different options for planning.
A Simple Plan
The easiest is to set yourself a minimum for each day. This probably shouldn’t just be the average you are aiming for, however.
For example, my daily plan is to write a minimum of 2,000 words. I also have either a 2 hour slot or two 1 hour slots each day that I know I will be able to write in. And that’s it my entire daily plan.
Now, 2,000 words a day for 30 days is only 60k words, not 90k. However, this is just my minimum. On days when I have more time or the words are flowing more smoothly, I know I’ll write 3, 4, or maybe even 5 thousand words. That’ll keep the average at 3,000 for the month.
If you are aiming for 50,000, a good daily minimum is 1,000 words. Write at least that every day, and the momentum will carry you.
A Weekday/Weekend Plan
Though my current schedule is not set up this way, many people have more free time on the weekend. So perhaps you want to set aside more time and hold yourself to a higher amount on the weekend.
I would recommend you write a minimum of 500 words every day. Even at a moderate pace, you can complete that in half an hour of writing. But then you can increase your amount over the weekends.
If you are aiming for 50,000, you could set a daily minimum of 500 on weekdays and 3,000 on weekend days. This would get you at least 39,500 if you don’t write on Thanksgiving.
A Day by Day Plan
If you enjoy making schedules, you can set a daily goal for each day of the month. I can’t offer much guidance, besides giving yourself about an hour for a thousand words if you don’t know your writing speed.
Doing a plan this way means your expectations for each day will align with your schedule. Just be careful to allow some variance, as things always come up in November. Trust me.
Tomorrow, we’ll begin working on finding ideas for our novel.