A Five Step Procrastination Guide

We’re nearing the end of NaNoWriMo, which is the time of the month when all those moments of procrastination have added up, and now you’re looking at your word count and can’t see hope of recovery.

Well. If you think you can’t do it just because you fell behind, you’re wrong! You’ve never been more wrong in your life! No shame in being wrong. But you are. You are wrong.

In this post, NaNoWriMo participant Sarah Lefebvre gives some sage advice to all our procrastinators out there:

NaNoWriMo encourages writers to pick up a pen or cozy up to a keyboard every day for the length of November, all in reach of the 50,000-word holy grail. Success requires dedication, time management, and consistency.

Or, if you’re a master procrastinator, it requires a dash of lunacy and a significant supply of sheer willpower.

I fall squarely into the procrastinator category. In fact, the higher the pressure radiating from a responsibility or commitment, the more my procrastinator brain relishes putting it off. Each year I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo, I started the contest late. Sometimes I didn’t expect to participate at all until after it began. But each time, I made it to that 50,000-word goal. So, from one procrastinator to another, here’s my guide for succeeding in NaNoWriMo despite a late start.