How to "Win" NaNoWriMo

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OK, so I've "won" NaNoWriMo a few times (like somewhere between four and seven, but enough times that I can't recall them all), and there have been several different ways that I've done it, though the procrastinator's method is my most frequent modus operandi.

Anyway, for those that haven't done NaNoWriMo before (or haven't won it), I figured it might be beneficial to post some methodologies to winning, and maybe a couple of tips, too.

And after all this, I will likely not succeed this year, and I'm OK with that (because I've done it already.  MULTIPLE TIMES).

So here goes.  First here are the various ways that you can win based on my observations.

• Slow and Steady Wins the Race - this may be the motto of the tortoise when matching up with the hare, but if you are someone possessing an immense amount of discipline and the ability to block out between one and three hours a day for the entire month of November and crank out 1667 words or so in each of those settings, you will actually have 50,000 words of fiction come December 1.  That said, I have never actually done this as I lack that discipline I mentioned, and therefore I can't vouch for any tips or tricks to keep on task here.  No matter how much I try, I skip a day (or 12) in the middle of November.
• Front load like a Front-End Loader - This is my recommendation for you to try to start, regardless of how you end up finishing.  Forget the 1667 words a day that puts you at 10,000 words in 6 days.  What you actually need is 10,000 words in 4-5 days.  For the first 5-10 days of November, when the juices are flowing, and the adrenaline and Red Bull have you in a writing frenzy, crank out as much as you possibly can to try to get yourself over the hump before you SLIDE down the backside.  If you can get 40,000 words done by November 15, I'd give 10:1 odds that you'll finish that last 20%.  Note - I have only accomplished this once.
• It's not a Marathon, it's a Sprint - OK, I have never done this.  But I have seen some insanely prolific writing claims on the forums that take the front-loading to the extreme, like some sort of extreme couponing wizardry of writing.  Some people (not me) crank out the 50,000 words before the end of the first week.  Don't believe me?  Check on November 8 around the forums, and you are likely to see some word counts that are just unbelievable.  But, there's enough of them and enough people every year doing it, that at least some of them have to be valid.
• It's all about the deadline - OK, so this is what Chris Baty was testing when he and his friends came up with NaNoWriMo over a decade ago.  It's all about the power of a deadline to get something done.  And, to be honest, for a procrastinator like me - this is exactly how I have finished most of my NaNoWriMos.  The pattern for me is this:  Write a few words a day for the first week.  Get bored.  Stop writing.  Start watching more football.  Eat Thanksgiving Turkey.  Realize that you haven't written and you're 35,000 words behind.  Decide to finish anyway.  Write 10,000-15,000 words a day for 3 days (sometimes taking off of work on November 30).  Hit 50,000 words sometime between 6 PM and 11 PM on November 30.  It's all about the deadline.

Pick your poison, I still recommend you TRY to front-load it, and if you fail, you can always binge-write later.  Want some tricks, though? Here are a few that I have tried (to some success):

• Word Wars and Sprints - They have them like every 15 minutes on Twitter, but seriously, doing sprints and 15 minutes on, 15 minutes off type of writing will crank that wordcount so fast you won't believe it.  At one point I would find myself writing 500 words in a 15 minute sprint (that's 1000 words an hour if you are alternating on/off).  That's some serious verbiage.
• Start on Halloween - OK, you can't start on October 31, but after midnight you can get a few hundred words in to get jumpstarted.  Wake up November 1 with a paragraph or two under your belt.
• Stop in the middle of a sentence - At the end of your writing session, stop in the middle of a sentence.  This also works at the end of a sprint.  Even if you know what you want to say next, when you start typing again, you will jump right back into the train of thought.
• Plan for tomorrow - I'm a pantser (write by the seat of your pants) not a plotter, though I have completed one outlined novel along with the other various no-outline ones and I'm trending back towards plotting/planning.  Still, even if you are dedicated to your pants, you need to figure out what you are going to write tomorrow before you get there.  Then you can just write it.  If you are in class or work all day and only writing at night or in the morning, use that time to figure out what's next (but still do your job or classwork).  But try to use any dead time (commute, anyone?) to at a minimum figure out what you are going to write in the next session.  Which reminds me, I need to get my first five or six scene ideas down.  Will do that right after this.
• Bookmark tools - I always keep a random name generator on bookmark, because the last thing I need is to sit for hours trying to devise the perfect name for the coffee barista or the extra soldier who is going to get killed in the next scene and only has one line.  Other handy things to have quickly on hand - Google Maps, Wikipedia, certain NaNoWriMo forums, etc.  Not handy: Facebook, ESPN.com, and Twitter.  Unless you're only looking at Twitter for the @NaNoWriMo feeds (@NaNoWordSprints is actually great for sprinting).  Sure, that's all you're reading.
• Don't write other stuff - So, you likely won't see me write blog posts for a bit (unless I've already "done my words" for the week or so).  And if you do the November Poem-A-Day challenge (if Robert Lee Brewer is doing that this year), then that's just more writing for you.  But the more writing you pile on yourself, the less likely the novel gets done (or your laundry, which is also important).

Anyway, those are tips/tricks and whatever.  But honestly the only way to win is to (sadly) stop reading my blog and go start writing.  On November 1.