It’s hard to believe, but November and National Novel Writing Month are half over. Time flies when you get up before the sun every morning to write. 

When I started this adventure, I wasn’t sure how I would fare or whether I would still be writing after a week. After all, 5:30 a.m. is almost TWO hours before sunrise at this time of year. 

I’m proud, though, that I hit the halfway mark this morning — 25,000 words out of 50,000. I got up from the table and did a little dance. My husband looked confused, but all I had to say was “I’m halfway there!” and he smiled and nodded. He knew. I warned him before November started.

So far, I’ve only missed two days of writing, even though some days I have not made my necessary daily goal of 1,667 words. I have made up the deficit on other days, so I feel pretty confident about the next two weeks. After #NaNoWriMo concludes, I feel that having a (nearly) daily writing habit this month will help me continue the consistency that I’ve previously lacked.

I had good luck for several months with the method recommended by Steve Scott and Hal Elrod in the book “The Miracle Morning for Writers.” I think I’ll be able to go back to that method after November ends.

One of the dozens of iterations based on the original The Miracle Morning, the authors of “for Writers” suggest that you spend a few minutes before you go to bed each night to prepare for the next day. This allows you to wake up the next day and fly through a quick morning routine to get down to the important stuff. And for writers, the important stuff is writing. 

Their Miracle Morning routine for writers is noted in my bullet journal’s habit tracker with my SAVERS chart: Silence (or meditation), Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, and Scribing (or writing). The steps in the SAVERS routine, whether you spend 5 minutes, 30 minutes or 60 minutes, prepare you to write.

The book also suggests how you can fulfill each of these areas, as well as how to have a successful career as a writer. Even if you don’t envision a career as a writer, it’s a good book to check out if you want to start writing or if it is hard for you to write consistently.

Rather than a book review, I’ll leave you with an example of my two affirmations that I also reinforce through the visualization step:

“Writers’ block is no match for me! I always come up with compelling plot lines and powerful narratives whenever I’m about to write.” 

“I focus on learning new things and improving my writing craft daily, and I commit to reading at least one or two new books every month.”

Happy writing!