Nano Training

I mentioned last week that I set up a training schedule. It’s nothing too fancy, but after writing sporadically over the summer, I knew that I needed to work up to 1,667 words, seven days a week.

This is what I came up with:

As you can see, I broke it up into blocks, each between 7-12 days long. I started with 100 words a day, before I made this list. I did that for three days, then realized how easily 500 words were coming, so I jumped right into that. I know that 1,000 words is a bit of a hurdle for me, so I gave myself longer to practice.

Within each block, I gave myself challenges. The first block is “freestyle,” which meant I could write on anything, or everything, so long as it added up to 500 words at the end of the day. My 1,000 and 1,500 word blocks are also freestyle. And yes, I count blog posts towards my totals.

My 700 and 1,200 word weeks were “short story sprints.” For the first one, I worked on an existing short story. For the second, I plan on writing a new one, which will (with luck) be the final installment of the Post Club.

The final stretch before November is 1,667 words a day on a dedicated project. I don’t have to finish the project, I just have to work on the same one every day.

I'm not doing so well on my training. Not horrible, but I've missed a few days. I think it'll be easier once Nano actually starts, and I can work on the project that I'm actually excited about at the moment, instead of whatever is mildly interesting at the time. And this week I haven't much wanted to write, because of the whole "I'm not longer getting published" thing. I'm starting to get back into the swing of things now, though.

I like crossing things off my list. Having a schedule is satisfying, I think, and I’m finding it useful since I’m writing two books and knitting a bunch of samples this month.

What kind of training do you do for Nano? How early do you start?

P.S. Posted this on the typewriter thread in the Nano forums. I'm just going to leave it here. :)