#NaNoWriMo: In which you pass the dreaded Day Seven

A shout out to those who are waaaay behind on word count. I am with you here. We will triumph. Seriously. Those people who already have 20,000 words are using robots and house pets to write their novels for them while they sleep. We don’t need that kind of help. We are tough. We are slow.

We will make it up this weekend. – Chris Baty, NaNoWriMo 2002

It’s Day Eight. You made it.

“Made what? she asked, carefully avoiding any adverbs. Wait… dammit.

Lemme explain.

There’s this interesting pattern that people fall into in doing anything difficult or new (like trying to adopt a habit of writing 1700 words every day) — many falter or fall off the wagon at the same, seemingly arbitrary points.

The magic numbers are 3, 7, and 21.

See, if people are going to quit something like a new exercise plan, or meditating in the morning, or whatever, they usually do it on the 3rd, 7th, or 21st day. I don’t think anyone really knows why this is, but it’s an actual thing that happens.

Pat yourself on the back: if you’re still seriously working on your project, you have passed two of the three giving-up hurdles.

You can do this.

Oh, and look: a cool essay from Neil Gaiman that you can read, instead of writing.

You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.