You’re all geared up for National Novel Writing Month. You’re excited, you’re prepared (you did read last week’s post on preparation, right?). Your story is so ready to be written that it’s practically exploding out of you. But then November 1st rolls around, and . . . wow, how about that? Wouldn’t you know it would be a Sunday–and your football team just happens to be playing a mega-important game. What do you do: be a good NaNo-er and keep writing during NaNo–or be a good fan and steal three measly hours to watch your team crush the opposition?

If you’re reading this post, you’re probably resolving right here and now to be a better writer than you are a fan come November 1st–just like Buckeyes fan Alexa on Twitter:

@KMWeiland How to recover when you get behind.And how to write when you only want to watch football…

— Alexa (@ajtrain16) September 25, 2015

(And, yeah, I have to admit that one of the reasons I decided to post on this subject was just because I really, really wanted to use that awesome title.)

Motivation: You Can’t Write Without It, So Where Can You Get Some?

As anyone who has been writing for more than two days knows, motivation is something writers struggle with the whole year through, not just during NaNo. The pressure, however, is more intense when you’ve committed to a public goal of 50k words in 30 days–during football season. And Thanksgiving season. And Black Friday season. And whatever else that’s shiny and interesting that crosses your path in November.

That’s why it’s so important to approach this project–and every other book you write during the rest of your life–with a specific plan to squash procrastination urges and keep you writing during NaNo. “How to keep writing” is a question I’m asked frequently, and while there are no easy answers, there are at least seven specific things I do to keep myself writing every single day. Ready to implement them in your own writing life?

7 Motivators Every Writer Should Be Using

1. Shame: You’ll Feel Terrible if You Don’t Write

Let’s start with the obvious one. It’s also arguably the least healthy one, but let’s face it: it’s ridiculously effective. After all, if you were okay with not writing, this whole writing vs. football competition wouldn’t even be a question. It’s the feelings of guilt and shame when we fail to live up to our personal commitments that scare into wanting to be motivated.

For better or worse, fear is a pretty strong motivator. So use it! When your attention starts drifting to the roar of the football crowd on the TV in the other room, take a moment to center yourself and deliberately focus on how you’ll feel if you exchange your writing for the comfy couch and a bowl of salsa.

Is that feeling really worth the brief release of tension you’ll feel in freeing yourself from your writing and the temporary pleasures of a good game? Only you can answer that question, and don’t take the answer for granted. But if you know you’re going to be angry with yourself after the game, use that feeling to keep you doing what you’re supposed to be doing: writing.

2. Satisfaction: You’ll Feel Great if You Do Write

At the same time as you’re deliberately exploring how bad you’ll feel if you don’t write, consciously embrace how good it will feel when you do. Think about applying yourself diligently to your goals, resisting the temptation for instant self-gratification, and powering through to the end of a difficult job. When does that ever not feel good? Is the temporary distraction of a football game–or whatever–really going to feel better than that?

But there’s more! This positive effect only compounds with time. As great as a one-time resistance to being a lazy bum feels, imagine the personal rewards when you have not just one day’s writing victory under your belt–but two in a row, a whole week, a whole month, a whole book! You’ll probably forget who won that game in less than a year. But you’ll never lose your satisfaction in the writing you’ve disciplined yourself to create.

3. Grit: Just Do It

This is what motivation is all about. Sure, it’s a bit of a head game, as the previous two motivators prove. But, ultimately, motivation, or the lack thereof, is powerless in the face of actual action. You’re a writer. You don’t care that the football fan inside of you is sitting on his pompoms, pouting. You don’t care that your fingertips are bleeding from all that ferocious typing. You don’t care that your stomach is growling, your throat is parched, and you really, really have to go the bathroom.

There’s no whining here, soldier. There’s no dithering. There’s no procrastinating. There’s no, Well, I just don’t feel like writing today.

Here, there’s only grit, determination, and writing. Lots and lots of writing. Fifty thousand words of writing.

Feeling pumped yet? I am! And the great part of this is that the more you exercise your “grit it out” muscle, the stronger it gets. Use it every day, and you’ll never have to worry about whether or not you’re motivated.

4. Focus: Ignore the Inconsequential

Staying focused is like walking a tightrope. You can’t think about too much, and you definitely don’t want to look down. One of my brain’s annoying little tricks is trying over and over to “check in” and monitor my motivation level. It’s like the cuckoo bird popping out of the clock house: “Are you still motivated? Are you still motivated? Are you still motivated?”

Needless to say, this constant pulse-checking is one of the quickest ways to bring conscious awareness to all the ways you’re perhaps not motivated and, as a result, throw off your groove. Don’t be OCD about your motivation or how you feel about your writing today.

This extends to your physical surroundings as well. Resist the urge to make sure everything is perfect. That’s the fast track to procrastination. I always have to resist my admittedly OCD tendencies: the background pic in Scrivener‘s full-screen mode doesn’t have to perfectly reflect the scene I’m writing, my desk doesn’t have to be completely cleared of clutter, all the emails in my inbox don’t have to be checked.

Surrender the need for perfection: it will only get the way of your motivation.

5. Prioritize: Get Your Writing Done First

Just as you’re taking the initiative in using October to plan and outline your story, take the initiative every single day in lining up your daily priorities and composing your schedule. I often say schedules are my secret weapon. This may be glib, but it’s no joke. If you don’t take the time to anticipate each day’s events to the best of your abilities and devise a plan of attack for navigating all them in an effective way, then your writing is just as likely to end up on the bottom of the pile as it is the top. More likely, in fact.

Prioritizing isn’t just a matter of putting your writing on your schedule, it’s a matter of choosing where to put it. For pretty much all of my writing life, I’ve scheduled my writing from 4-6PM, on the theory that I was saving the best for last. But as my schedule got more and more crammed, that writing time at the end of the day began getting encroached upon more and more.

This year, I started the habit of making writing the first thing I do when I sit down at the computer in the morning. And guess what? My writing sessions have been way more consistent and productive. If you want to make certain your writing happens, do it first thing. That way, whatever else may collide with your day, at least your writing is already checked off the list.

6. Be Proactive: Kill Distractions

Some distractions you can’t anticipate or avoid: your kid throwing up all over his bed, a flat tire on the way to the grocery store, a driveway full of snow that has to be shoveled before work. But most of the distractions that interfere with your writing are things you can probably rattle off in a list right now:

• The Internet
• Phone calls
• Household chores
• Interruptive family members

Because you can anticipate all of these things, you have it in your power to mitigate–or even eliminate–their effect.

• If at all possible, turn off the Internet–or work from a device with no connectivity such as an AlphaSmart Neo or maybe even a good old pad of paper.

• Turn off your phone and put it in another room to keep you from checking messages.

• If there are household chores you can take care of the night before (laundry, dirty dishes, etc.), do them. If not, put them out of sight and out of mind until after you’ve finished your writing session.

• Ask family members and friends to respect the hours you’ve scheduled for your writing. Lock the door and put a sign on the handle if necessary.

• Save research questions for after writing, so you don’t get derailed looking for the answers.

• Go over what you’ll be writing tomorrow, so you can anticipate any inspirational images or research facts you’ll need before then.

In short, wherever possible, look ahead to tomorrow’s writing session and do everything you can to eliminate the distractions you already know about. When it comes to the distractions you don’t know about, you’ll need to revert to Motivator #3: Grit–and just power through them.

7. Bribe: Write First, Watch Football Later

Nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned bribe. Who says you can’t watch that football game? Promise yourself a reward, but only if you accomplish your writing goals first. If you think you won’t be able to discipline yourself to withhold the reward if you fail in your goals, give the TV remote to someone else and make them promise to keep it out of reach until you’ve proven you deserve a little shouting at the TV in exchange for your hard work and discipline.

Motivation is largely a mind game, and as such it can be difficult to come up with concrete ways to manage it. But if you can enforce all seven of these motivators in your writing life, they’re guaranteed to spur you to keep writing during NaNo and beyond!

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! What do you do to keep writing during NaNo–or any other time of the year? Tell me in the comments!

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