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NaNoWriMo Goal Setting

I was going to post this over the weekend but life got in the way and I didn't have it finished. But here it is now! Better late than never. You can check out my introduction post here.

How to Make Your Goal

Camp Nanowrimo is a lot more flexible than Nanowrimo. In the November challenge, your set goal is 50,000 words. Sure, some people have individual goals, especially the overachievers (in the Beyond 50k forum) but this is what is officially winning. In Camp, your goal can be set in words, hours, minutes, lines, and pages. This leads to a variety of projects and stages within those projects. Writing a screenplay? A goal in lines might be ideal. Planning and editing are good to measure in time, but some people may use pages. Everything is literally up to you.

I'm focusing primarily on the first draft, but I love how you can measure in anything. I stick with words because timing things annoys me and words Is a more concrete way to measure. I definitely see the pros of using a different unit to measure.

When deciding your goal, think ahead to April. What do you have to do? Are you going out of town? Do you have exams? All of these play a role in how high or how low to set your target.

Personally, I set my goal at 70,000 words. I have some things going on in April, but I am really excited about this project and college has been really good to me in finding the time to write and work on my own personal projects.. I fully expect that this will not be my goal at the end of the month because life is unpredictable and I don't know how things are going to end up playing out.

If you discover that your goal is too high or too low once the month starts, then you can change it! Camp lets you edit your project at any point in the month. Personally, if I consider the month productive, I will edit my goal to "win" for the month.

How to Plan Your Month and Your Time Left

There are twenty days left in the month, which is plenty of time to figure out some of the details of how April is going to run. You know all the things you thought about going on in April when setting your goal? Write all of them down. I use a planner during the rest of the year, but during Nanowrimo months, I print off a separate calendar. Include events, projects, and anything that affects your month and time for writing.


I also write down daily word count goals on this calendar. Figure out how much you have to get done everyday to reach your goal on time and use this as a basis, but include variations. April 1 and April 30 are probably good days to set high goals. Here's a 10k day 1 challenge, but with everyone working hard both those days, getting caught up in the excitement is easy and makes those days productive, unless you have something else already there. Your total should be over your goal because if you try to surpass everyday, then getting behind won't matter.

In November, I wrote 84k. It probably would have been higher, but one of my friends died and I stopped writing for five days. It's okay. You don't have to reach your goal. Emergencies will come up but don't let this get you down. It's a self challenge and meant to be for fun. I'll talk about this more during April, but I believe in you. I swear by planning my month because this stuff does come up but by planning to be ahead, it makes it easier to get through things.


Other Types of Planning

This not enough planning for your month? There is so much to be able to do. Food planning is valuable, not only for meals but also making sure that you buy snacks and beverages. Some people may have other things to plan for April. The ideal time to start is soon, before it becomes too close and things become harder to change.

What are some other things that you plan on planning for April? Be sure to let me know your ideas in the comments.


The next post will continue on this planning trend, but this time will go into more about planning your novel rather than just trying to plan everything else in your life. I started a new system and am really pleased with the results so far and am excited to be sharing it in hopes that you can get prepared in a way that works for you. This post will be up Friday or Saturday.

Thanks for reading!
Alyssa

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