Well, NaNoWriMo ends this evening, and as you can see, I hit 50,000 words last night.

Whew.

I had to do quite a bit of rushing and writing in order to make up lost ground and finish on time, which got me to thinking about writing deadlines in general and techniques for meeting them. Here are a few I used to finish this year.

1. When you’re tired, frustrated, or tempted to quit for any reason, force yourself to write for five more minutes. If nothing else, you get five minutes’ worth of work. Usually, and even better, you work through the frustrating bit and get back into the work.
2. Set aside a block of time to write, free of distractions. For me that sometimes even means eliminating background noise such as music, television, etc. However, don’t work for the entire block of time. Write for twenty or thirty minutes, then take a break and stretch, walk around, etc.
3. If you’re stuck on a particular scened, skip it and write another. If you prefer to write linearly, then think of the scene from another character’s perspective. Think about what your character wants and play with that. I sometimes have my characters act the opposite of what I’d expect based on their desires.
4. Carve out time from other activities for your writing. Skip the laundry. Vacuuming can wait till next week. That phone call can wait too. Every bit of time you can salvage and turn to your writing will help. Sometimes I have to confess to folding laundry when I’m finding writing difficult. That’s not very productive, but we do have neat t-shirts!
5. Don’t panic, and try not to look at the big picture. Thinking of 20,000 words you need to write is intimidating, and it seems practically impossible, doesn’t it? Don’t think about that. Think about writing the next thousand words. That sounds more doable, and you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment from finishing it. That’s how I managed to finish up NaNo this year despite being so far behind. Write one thousand words, take a short break, rinse, repeat.

Whether you participated or made the 50,000 word count this year or not, I’m sure you have or will face a writing deadline. I get my best results when I stay focused and refuse to let myself get overwhelmed. Now, if I can just stop procrastinating, I’d be really terrific!