Push Button Paradise

Lots of folks assume no without giving it much thought. But could you?

In America, most employers give two paid days off in November, around the Thanksgiving holiday. In addition, there are 8 days of weekends, and 20 normal weekdays.

The one thing NaNoWriMo forces you to do is Just Write. No dumbly staring at the keyboard, no pencil twirling--put that Rubik's Cube away!--Just Write. Let's say 40 words a minute at a keyboard. All you need to make the 50 kiloword quota is 1,250 productive minutes. Less than 21 hours.

Here's some sample schedules:

Power Lunch

All 20 normal work-days, skip lunch and write. Or take public transport for your commute and write. Or get up an hour early or stay up an hour late. That gets you up to 48,000 words. You have 2,000 more to write over your 2 PTO days.

Weekend Warrior

On each of the 4 Saturdays and 4 Sundays, spend a measly 3 hours writing. Presto, you've got 57,600 words.

PTO Power

You guessed it, during each of your two paid time-off days (or take some vacation if your employer doesn't already give it) spend 11 hours each day power-writing. An 11-hour day isn't that bad. If you're a programmer, you probably do it all the time. In no time you'll be up to 52,800 words.

If none of these work directly, then it's time to mix-and-match.

Heck, with schedules that easy, I think I'll write two or three novels in November. :) -m

posted at: 22:10 | under: 2005-10 | 0 comment(s)