A NaNoCRATE

#15 • TAKE A BREAK!

Feeling stressed or lost in the middle of NaNo? Jasmine Guillory has some cheerful advice to get you back on track and in the writing groove again!

As I write this, I'm in the middle of making soup.

See, I wasn't sure exactly what to say to you all, and what would be best for you to hear this week to help you through the hump of the third week of NaNoWriMo. You all have been writing flat out for weeks now, and if you're anything like me, right around now is the time when you might be hitting a few speed bumps. 

You've hit that time when the exciting beginning of the book, the part that you knew exactly how to write, runs out, and you're trying to figure out what comes next. That's a hard time.

I was thinking of all of the writing advice I've gotten, and what to tell you to encourage you to keep going, and I had no idea where to start. So I took a break to make some soup. And I realized that's exactly what I need to talk to you all about: taking breaks, and how creatively important and rejuvenating they are.

I have had so many writing breakthroughs when I've been away from my laptop. Sometimes, stepping away from the words on the screen is exactly what you need. I wrote the first half of the first draft of The Wedding Date, my debut novel, during Camp NaNo, and my story and my characters were never far from my mind.

But it was often when I wasn't actively working on the book when I had an epiphany about it.

"The key is to give your mind a break from actively thinking about something, and give your subconscious the time and space to meditate on your story."

What should your break be? That depends on what works best for you. Whether it's cooking, or listening to music, or taking a shower, or going for a run, or [fill in the blank], the key is to give your mind a break from actively thinking about something, and give your subconscious the time and space to meditate on your story.

For me, deciding to sleep on something often helped: that time right before falling sleep, when my mind wanders, somehow makes everything click for me.

Sometimes things that feel like a waste of time can be a gift in the long run. This summer, while working on a first draft, I procrastinated by making a huge playlist of songs that made me think of my plot and my characters. But at least a dozen times as I drove around listening to the playlist, I said "Oh, that's what I need to do!" out loud. I'm not saying all procrastination is good...but not all of it is bad, either.

Most importantly: always have something with you so you can jot down your stroke of genius!

I've forced myself to wake up on countless occasions so I could grab my phone and type out a few lines in the Notes app so I wouldn't forget my ideas in the morning (I learned that the hard way). Have a dry erase board in your kitchen so you can make notes while you cook, get one of those waterproof notepads if you're a shower thinker, keep a tiny notebook in your back pocket, do whatever you need to do.

Congratulations on all that you've accomplished this month already! I just took a look back at my word count spreadsheet from the first draft of The Wedding Date, and at this point in the month, I was running well behind on word count, and I had no idea if I would make it to 50K by the end of the month.

But I believed in my book, and I was having a ton of fun writing it, and I knew no matter how difficult certain parts of the writing process were, I wanted to keep going.

I'm cheering you on to write as many words as you can, and to take writing breaks in order to refresh yourself and make your words the best they can be.

Join our friends at NaNo HQ on Sunday for the next Virtual Write-In! Check out our Twitter or Message Board for the link.