So now you’ve been doing NaNo for about a week, and you’re starting to slow down. Maybe you’re having a hard time meeting word counts because of family visiting or work or sickness or lack of motivation or a bunch of other reasons.

If you’re having trouble meeting your word counts, don’t stress. This challenge is for you and for no one else, and you’ll learn something whether you meet your goals or not. With that said, if you really want to get faster, I might be able to offer a bit of advice. I’m currently at 21,000 words and should be at 25,000 by Friday. So here are my nine ways to write faster for NaNoWriMo.

Disclaimer

First, a disclaimer. Everyone’s mind works differently, and just because some of these strategies work for me doesn’t mean they’ll be ideal for you. I’m also neurodivergent (I have ADHD), and that means I’ve developed my own ways of coping and managing. In the same way, you’re going to have to find your own methods because you know yourself best.

Disclaimer over, let’s get to what I’ve been doing to churn out 3k+ words on a daily basis.

How to write 50,000 words in a month

Let’s jump right in.

1. Use the TK method

Place TK (to know or to come depending on who you ask) in your novel to show places you’ll need to add descriptions later. If you’re anything like me, actions and dialogue come easily, but descriptions don’t.

Leaving a TK lets you spend more time on the main thread of your story, and you can always come back to fill in TKs after. In case you’re wondering why TK, it’s because there’s no TK in the English language. if you hit CTRL + F on a Windows or CMND + F on a Mac, you can search for TK and there won’t be any words in your novel that use it (maybe unless you’re writing a fantasy novel).

Some other recommendations people have made are to put () or [] instead of TK, since you can also search those. Plus when you go back to fill them in, you can keep them inside the parentheses or brackets so you don’t lose track of which part you’re editing until you’re satisfied with your additions.

2. Jump over to 4theWords when you’ve stalled

This one has been particularly helpful when I run into those times that I just don’t have motivation or my brain doesn’t seem to be working and I just need to get a few words down on the page.

4thewords.com is a website/app that lets you track your words and fight monsters and progress along an RPG pathway while doing it. For me at least, gamification is a great way to stay on track, and the website itself is very cute and user friendly. There is a premium version; however, you can use many of the features for free.

3. Reward yourself for significant milestones

You deserve something for getting this far! Bigger rewards should go for bigger milestones to keep you going onward and upward. I’m currently rewarding myself every 10,000 words. I have to credit Avery Moore on YouTube for this idea.

I personally am rewarding myself with writing-related gifts like world building journals and character profile templates, as well as a couple other things that I’ve just been wanting for a long time.

You may find that it works better for you to reward yourself for smaller milestones, just to get you to that next step. Maybe you gift yourself party favor or even a piece of candy every 500-1000 words or so in your story, or something a little bigger. The only thing to keep in mind is you don’t necessarily want to gift yourself a new video game you’ve really wanted to play or a book you’ve really wanted to read until the end of NaNo, as you still have a lot of writing to do and don’t want to get distracted!

4. Have music playing in the background

You get extra points if your musical choice fits your genre and story. I recommend instrumental music so you don’t end up getting distracted by the lyrics.

For fantasy, which is my main genre, I highly recommend listening to anime soundtracks like Violet Evergarden and Fairy Tail or video game soundtracks. Some other options are Epic Music World on YouTube, which has tons of amazing tracks, and Karl Edh, who you can find on Soundcloud.

5. Put on a timer or join a writing sprint

If you’re not sure where to join a writing sprint, you can find some virtual ones to join at scribophile.com and or shutupandwrite.com. These are basically timed “races” in which participants try to write as many words as possible within a given time frame.

I have ADHD, which means hyper focus is one of my best allies when it comes to NaNo, and timers are one of the best ways to generate this kind of focus for me. I write late in the day so my hyper focus doesn’t interfere with my day job and put on music or a timer and just give myself a couple hours to completely immerse myself in my novel writing.

6. If you’re stalled within a scene, write an outline

Your outline doesn’t need to be fancy. You can write just a couple quick bullet points to show the progression of how your characters move and talk in the scene.

I also recommend that if you haven’t completely outlined your book, you outline just a couple chapters ahead of where you are at least. It seems to speed things up for me, and this can even work for pantsers who don’t do a whole lot of planning ahead of time.

7. If you can’t write the next words, read or listen to a story instead

Let’s say you’re well and truly stuck. People tell you just write the next 100 words, but you have no idea where to take your story from here. Read a novel in your same genre or watch a movie or listen to an audio book with your notebook in hand. Write down anything that even slightly inspires you. It can get you to the next step. You can also do this with songs that remind you of your characters and story.

Don’t be afraid to take a whole day or even a whole week to do this. You might be surprised at how much a little reading fuels your creative genius and jump starts your progress next week!

8. Join a leaderboard

If you’re the competitive type like I am, this will really keep you on track! One of my favorite ways to do this is through TrackBear, but there are other sources as well. TrackBear.app is completely free and lets you track your word count and compare with other writers. There’s an active NaNo leaderboard with around 200 members at the moment that you can join with the following join code:

4850558d-105c-4e7b-86e6-e98edffe0a20

9. Learn to type faster

I realize this isn’t all that helpful for NaNo this year, but I promise you that it’ll be worth it for all your future years doing the challenge.

Reaching 50,000 words is so much easier with a faster typing speed. You’ll be able to keep up with your character’s conversations and reduce the chance of getting stalled because your typing can keep up with your ideas. Actively try to learn to type faster through the help of typing.com, nitrotype.com, or another resource.

Both typing.com and nitrotype.com are completely free and use gamification to help you learn so that you can absolutely smash your goals next year!

Another way to learn to type faster is by typing dictation. Find a YouTube video with a clear speaker on an interesting subject and go to the video settings to reduce the speed so you can keep up. Over time as you improve you can gradually reduce the speed until you can type as fast as a normal conversation.

Final thoughts

I decided to do this special post apart from my normal schedule because I’ve seen a lot of folks on forums and on Reddit who are struggling. I understand if you’re getting discouraged about not meeting your goals, but I want to encourage you not to give up. This challenge isn’t for some organization; it’s for you, to improve, to have fun, and to do something that you hopefully love. So keep with it. You can do this!

What are some other ways you’re managing to meet your goals? Share your responses in the comments and subscribe to my blog to learn about my projects and get more writing advice!