Nano: Weekends

We're all up in weekend number two of Nanowrimo 2014 and it's time to talk about what weekends are good for: catching up and getting ahead!

Most* people work weekdays and have weekends off, which means more free time. Free time to dedicate to writing, of course!

Try to get in twice as many words as you normally plan to. If you can, sit down for a big chunk of time and write as much as you can then. Find fifteen minutes here and there through out the day to throw down some words. Experiment with different strategies to get your butt parked in a chair writing until you find the one that works best for you.

Also use your weekend to prepare for the week ahead:

1. If you haven't already, sketch out a quick list of scenes you might like to write this week. 
2. Set a word goal to hit by the end of the week. 
3. Figure out meals and such for the week ahead - cutting down on prep time, even if it's just figuring out what you're going to eat - will give you more time to write!
4. Set a timer for twenty minutes and do as many of your weekly chores as possible. Rinse and repeat until you've burned through them and can reward yourself with a writing session.
5. Look at the past week and figure out what days were the hardest for you to write during, and what you can do to avoid those blocks in the week ahead.
6. Pat yourself on the back for making it through your first week and revel in your commitment to *keep going*

Your mission this weekend is to get in as many words as you can. Don't burn yourself out - don't force yourself to sit and write 10K days unless you enjoy that sort of thing. But don't let yourself off easy either. Get your 1667 done and then stretch yourself to hit 2K.  If you're behind by a few thousand words, commit to catching up this weekend. Or if you can't do that much extra writing now - figure out when you can do it. Maybe you need to sneak in two or three extra writing sessions in the next week. Maybe you need to up your daily minimum word count (don't increase it too much because that will make writing extra daunting. I really recommend planning to do an extra writing sessions or two or three or however many it takes because you'll feel a sense of accomplishment about knocking those off rather than having to slog through more words as part of your normal writing schedule.)




* I realize that there's many people who work weekends - particularly in retail, obviously, and in service industries, as well as anyone who has a home business, and parents are still responsible for children and so on.