AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! (<– me screaming) NaNoWriMo starts in THREE DAYS!!! And guess who’s been slacking on their #NaNoPrep posts?? Yep, you guessed it. Me. I had a good reason, though. I was on vacation.

So what do you do when you realize November is literally right around the corner? Well…

No. Please don’t freak out. It only gets better from here.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. A quarter of the way through November you’ll hit a wall and feel like giving up. Your characters won’t talk to you, your plot has worn seventeen holes in itself, and worst of all, you’re five thousand words behind schedule. You think Halloween is the perfect time for horror movies? WAIT TILL NEXT MONTH. YOU’LL BE LIVING ONE.

Okay but also:

• You are embarking on a journey only the bravest dare begin
• You are defying all odds and achieving the impossible
• You are pushing past what you thought were your own limitations
• You are stretching yourself and growing because of it
• You are finishing what you started
• You are writing an entire NOVEL in a MONTH

Doesn’t that sound nice? Take it from me. I’m not a NaNo veteran, this is only my third year participating, but NaNoWriMo can be a game-changer when it comes to your writing habits. There is something very satisfying in not giving up. And the satisfaction is purely a personal one – when you realize what you’re actually doing, you feel a great sense of accomplishment. And if it’s hard to keep going, even better. Just don’t give up.

And it’s okay to freak out a little bit. In fact, it’s probably necessary. That’s why NaNoWriMo works the way it does. The intensity is so high, the odds are so impossible, that you don’t even care anymore. At some point, you stop caring that the story is crap and you write it anyway. Maybe it’s just my personality, but when something is impossible, it makes me try even harder. And I usually find out that whatever the thing was wasn’t so impossible after all.

I actually think that this is among the more important topics during NaNoPrep. I’ve seen maaaaaaaany posts about how to get your story ready, but almost none about how to get your mind ready. NaNoWriMo is like running; the hardest part is in your mind. It’s psychological.

Logistically, it’s not that hard (and it’s a lot less physically exerting than running) – you can set aside an hour or so a day for writing. And… that’s it. It’s as simple as rearranging a few things on your schedule and sitting down and focusing.

The rest of it is in your head. Most of it’s determination. Confidence is also helpful, but not 100% necessary. How determined are you to finish?

Notice what I said there? I said finish. I didn’t say win. Winning is awesome, but finishing is an even nobler goal. To win, you have to write 50,000 words by November 30. But to finish means to keep going. Even if you fail. Even if you don’t win, will you keep writing, or will you give up and never go back to the story again?

NaNoWriMo is just the beginning of a book-writing journey. I like it because it forces me to get the story down on paper, a process that would take months under normal circumstances. It’s more motivating, too! Imagine trying to run a marathon by yourself instead of with a bunch of other people.

So there it is. No matter where your story takes you next month, no matter how much your characters hate you, don’t give up. I’ll be honest with you. It’s hard. Exhausting. You will ask yourself why you ever signed up for it. But the reward of seeing yourself finish is so worth it. And when it’s over, you’ll realize that the impossible wasn’t so impossible after all.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year?

How do you overcome mental obstacles for writing?