The first week of December I hear from countless writers that they are struggling to continue writing. Undoubtedly, they were writing machines during the month of November. In my mind, it’s no different from athlete coming off the field and the adrenaline dump that usually follows. I’ve termed it “The Nano slump.” It’s a writers slump, it will clear up. It will get better, but you need to realize that your practices during the month of November aren’t sustainable long term. This is where you need to take a hard look at the strategies you used to achieve your fifty thousand word goal and decide which ones can stay.
Some people clear their calendars for NaNoWriMo. Many of us lock ourselves away, skipping every social event except for Thanksgiving in the US, or give up television for the month. This isn’t sustainable long-term, not if you want to keep your friends and family happy. This is where you need to put on that detective’s hat. No, I’m not giving you murder mystery to solve. What I want you to do is find out if writing is going to be a long-term feature in your life or November only project. There’s nothing wrong with confining your writing to November, if that’s what you genuinely want to do.
I can’t. My characters demand I write about them year round. Ideally, I’m at my desk writing seven days a week. This works for me because I am blessed to be a full-time writer. I know everyone doesn’t have this luxury, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait till November to write again.
Can you schedule one hour a week? Even the busiest people I know can set aside one hour week. It simply comes down to priorities I have made my writing a priority in my life. This isn’t always easy, and many times other activities threaten this precious time. I’ve sent 11 AM to 2 PM as my daily writing time. This means I don’t go out for lunch with friends, and only occasionally eat lunch with my husband.
This transition didn’t happen overnight, it took months. There are days when life happens, and I am forced to give up my writing time that day. On those days I don’t beat myself up because my actual writing goal is six days a week, not seven. The first thing I had to do was to teach myself that my writing time is important, an appointment I had to keep. Yes, I said appointment. It’s on my calendar, complete with reminders. There are times I have “multitasked” by washing dishes while I talked to dictation software. My writing is nowhere as good when I do this, so it’s only practical with a first draft.
My first step in establishing my writing time was to put on the calendar. However, I quickly found I couldn’t stick with the schedule I’d chosen. It seemed to conflict with everything. I went back to the drawing board and found a new time. This took almost 6 months of trial and error and wasn’t pretty. My 
current writing time was established for me by a write in that was scheduled by one of my writing buddies who lives in New Zealand. Now if I didn’t show up, I felt like I was letting someone else down, not just myself. It’s kind of like that walking buddy or workout buddy. You don’t want to let them down, and the last thing I wanted to do was let Judy down.
Judy discovered that she is at her best in the wee hours of the morning. So she started a write in based on sunrise in New Zealand. As many of you know I am not a morning person so I’m thankful that sunrise in New Zealand is midday for me. I finally began keeping my writing time and hitting my stride. I have written one full manuscript and edited another while being protective of my writing time.
The small group of writers that gathers for the oh dark write-in have gotten to know each other and we become friends. Each week multiple times a week we gather and work on our distinct projects and share our love of writing. Now stop trying to maintain those crazy writing goals and figure out what you can realistically achieve. For more information, see Judy’s post on setting goals.