Managing school and writing during NaNoWriMo?

I'll admit it's quite a struggle. But if you remain calm and organized, you can get through it and win NaNo without your grades falling. Just write yourself lots of reminder notes so you don't forget to do things and remember that school IS the more important thing here. Even if you really want to win NaNo, which I'd understand, school will impact your life more.

Good luck!

NaNo 2008-->Mrs. Price--> Planning

I share your pain. I'm supposed to write a 50,000 page novel, write notes for my economics teacher, write a turkey story for my creative writing teacher, try to play an instrument...my fingers are going to give out!!!!

Yeah I totally agree there, I've never actually finished Nanowrimo (to be honest I practically didn't start) due to school work and other commitments. Maybe I'll be lucky this year. Well good luck and most of all have fun!

Well, I managed it by writing in class a lot. Whenever I had a spare minute, I wrote down things I would later type up. It helped that one of my classes had a lot of dead time because of all the slackers, but I even managed to write in classes where my teachers handed out new work every minute.

I also stayed up till late writing, and used my insomnia to my advantage. This year, I will have none of these advantages (except maybe insomnia, but its even a worse thing now).

Go to bed early, wake up early, and go to a co-op course that all I can write on is the pastries I make, an action that would probably get me kicked out of the program.

Take any busy time where you can't write as an opportunity for inspiration. Oh, and say good-bye to hanging out with people on weekends XD. It actually works if you get your weekends to yourself (even if your week is packed). I've written 20K+ in a weekend using this. Make sure your friends understand, though.

My .02

~Ammietia

I usually write a lot, even without NaNo, so I'm already used to balancing college work and writing. It's all about taking your writing tools to school and taking advantage of free hours, lunch hours, teachers running late, teachers letting you out early, etc. Also, if you are lucky enough to get a ride to/fro from your parents or on a school bus, you can also use that time. And you also need to write a lot during weekends. You're going to have to learn to stop procrastinating not only for your WIP, but for your homework as well, since the quickest you get that out of the way, the easiest you can get back to NaNoing.

~o~

If live gives you lemons, make orange juice. Let the rest of the world wonder how the #$%# you managed it.

Si la vida te da limones, has jugo de naranja y deja que el resto del mundo se pregunte cómo carajos lo lograste.

Frankly, it is no different than juggling Nano and a job and family. College is actually the time you have the MOST leisure time of your entire life. It is easy to squeeze in writing by taking away some other leisure activity for a while.

But when you work full time to support a family, and that family needs to eat and have clean clothes and be taken to soccer practice, you get VERY creative in finding time to write. I've been doing it for years, and I have won Nano all five years I've participated. In fact, with a newborn and two pre-teens, I won my first Nano with 96K words.

It's really a matter of looking at what you are willing to give up to give yourself a precious few hours to do your writing. For me it was television, and I haven't missed in in five years of not watching it. You'd be surprised what you can give up in the name of novelling. My job didn't suffer, my family didn't suffer, and we didn't miss any soccer games.

"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." ~E.L. Doctorow
Visit the NanoWriter's group!
Celestial Chicken Blog

Efficient time management.
The way I see it, school always has to come first. Do the assignment, write the paper, and do it well, don't let your novel distract you. That way, when you're done, the tables turn: write, write, write, and school's already taken care of, it won't distract you.
The good thing about NaNo is that, since it's the amount written that counts, it won't matter that the three lines that you wrote in the free minute you found are utter crap. So you can always squeeze in a couple minutes of writing between task and task.

"I'm not afraid to die, I'm afraid to be alive without being aware of it"

I actually didn't find it too difficult to juggle school and NaNoWriMo. If I wanted a head start, I'd wake up at five in the morning to write (because unlike most, I LIVE at school). Instead of watching TV during lunch, I'd go to the computer room and write my heart out. If all the computers were taken, I'd switch to longhand.

NaNoWriMo 07 won!
NaNoWriMo 08 won!

Well, for one thing, if projects were due in November but assigned in October, I did everything I could in October. Of course that's not going to help you much NOW. Time management is also super important. Weekends with few Monday commitments, and Thanksgiving break, become your greatest friends.

If you have a free period or a study hall it might help to work on nano during that time, and not at home when you should be doing homework. This is what I did, because I had two free periods during the day. One of them I never really used for work at all, just general crawling around through the internet, and by focusing it on nano I got that done AND I had my coursework in on time :]

Well, this is my first time doing NaNoWriMo...and I'm drowning in schoolwork. When I get home from school, I have a few minutes to chill on the computer before lunch, so that's the time I pound out words. XD

well, i am dealing with high school during nano, which i am sure will be a really big challenge. luckily, i dont get too much homework and i make up what i miss on weekdays by writing my novel alot more on weekends. i have a system where i have a certain number of words i hope to reach each day (1,700) and i am hoping i can double that on like a saturday, and then take a whole day off.

I'm sure this doesn't help anyone =P but my luck has it that I have a spare right before lunch, and two of my three classes are practically spares anyway since the teachers rarely assign work, and we never do anything in class. I'm planning on getting most of my writing done in spare every day which leaves evenings free for other commitments, and then pounding it out on the weekends.

"Life soggies too fast when you put milk in it."

I actually have to deal with college applications during NaNo this year. And not just any, but ones to art schools, which means that I have to create a fifteen-piece portfolio. At the moment, I've got maybe seven or eight pieces.

My only advice to you is to make sure NaNo does not make you slip. It is fun, sure, but school is more important. Of course, if you succeed at publishing your NaNo, school might slip a little on the importance scale. But do your homework, and leave NaNo for after.

..............
Screnzy '09- Grimm

It's my first time doing nano as well and I have a full time college which eat up all of my energy
although I'll try to devote myself to write as much as I can during weekends and I hope I can
be able to steal some week moments to write some more
It's gonna be exhausting I know , Let's just give it a try

I don't have an answer to this question that would work for most normal people, because I'm kind of unnaturally driven. I wouldn't expect anyone else to carry maximum credit load, work two jobs, finish NaNo, and still find time for both sleep and a boyfriend. Yet I expect these things of myself. Why? I can't answer that either. I'm just insane.

If you're good, know it, even if no one else does.
~MollyAnn Leikin

Novel 2007: Tall Heels (Finished, 52k)
Novel 2008: Retribution (Unfinished, 50k)

This is my first time participating, too, but this is what I plan to do: Several years ago, because she is a teacher, my Mom bought an Alpha Smart (It's an older model, but it looks similar to the NEO). I've brought it to school befoe, and this year I plan to use it for writing my NaNo. Lunches would be best, and since I wake up early to go to Seminary, I'm sure Brother McCune wouldn't mind. My other teachers, maybe - so I longhand in those classes, just writing constantly. Whatever I write is then transcribed into the A.S. later.

I also noticed that it took about an hour to reach the days quota, so an hour every day is set aside for writing. I have to write a blog for my English class, so I'll do that the moment I get home. Then I'll give myself 20 to check stuff online, just to get myself caught up. Homework can wait - It usually never takes me long and, if I'm smart, I did it in class anyways.

||Thinking is free - do more of it.||

I think I'll manage pretty well. First time doing NaNo EVER and I have midterms coming up. This'll be plenty of fun. I think I'll be okay, though. I only have four classes and we get fridays off every week, so that will help if I ever get behind on NaNo. And I can always write down little NaNo notes during class if they pop up. I think I'll be just fine. I just hope I get enough sleep. But hey, fourteen years old, in grade ten, taking Spanish 11 and writing a 50,000 word novel. Yeah, it can be stressful. Just earlier I was like, "WHY AM I EVEN DOING THIS? WHAT WAS I THINKING." This was at 1,500 words and the page mocking me. But then I re-read what I wrote, got inspired all over again, pulled up a box of chocolates and started writing away.

I'm still wondering why I'm even doing this, though.

This is also my first time, but I have to spend all day on campus, with significant stretches of time between classes, so I plan to do some writing then, as well as some studying to free up more time in the evenings.

In the past, I've been able to easily find time to do NaNoWriMo and homework. I waste so many hours a day procrastinating, and all I really have to do is to divert some of my procrastination hours into productive hours.

This year, I'm planning to do much the same thing. I have to study for an important exam on the 19th, but that leaves eleven relatively free days after the exam to write! I also have a four-day weekend right at the start of the month to write (currently on day three), and I'm trying to build up a comfortable margin over it. However, my schoolwork is important, so I'm going to try and write as efficiently as possible between tomorrow and the 20th. No procrastinating, or at least as little as possible -- I'm going to aim for one hour of solid writing and be done with it!

Watch this signature gain some marginally more useful content come November!

Well, this year is my second year. Last year I was taking all academic class(I still am). I'm not sure what the equivalent for American classes is, but basically it's for the smart people. I actually found it easy to juggle writing. I kept a notebook with me and wrote down ideas during my classes and in the halls. I save my story to a memory stick (you could also e-mail it to yourself), and I typed during lunch. It all depends on how fast you write, but I could get 1000 words give or take in each 40 minute lunch period. Then all you have to do is write 600ish and organize yourself for the next day.

After Nov 17th I've got a lot of free time, which, if I fall behind in NaNo because of school work/exams I can use to catch up.

My tip for managing NaNo is to keep up your minimum word count each day (1667) so you don't fall behind, but just don't do any excess. If you get a good idea, scrawl it down, and then save it for later to write up. It will keep you writing enough to stay in habit, and probably help you to have a massive NaNo-a-thon when you do get some time off schoolwork.

With managing NaNo and HW, you first have to be organised at doing your HW full stop. If you can't get your HW done normally, you really have to buckle down and get your boots dirty if you want to realistically do NaNo. If you're failing classes, I seriously suggest you reconsider attempting it this year.

Basic HW management:
1. Prioritise - what needs to be done? What will take you the most amount of time to complete?

+If an assignment is due really soon, make that your priority.
+If you have a very large assignment due in a couple of weeks, do it a tiny bit at a time over the next few weeks. Eating away at it small chunks at a time is easiest.

2. Frequent Breaks
+Reward yourself for doing work. Do NOT use MSN, games, YouTube or other addictive things to fill in that time. You'll find yourself so engrossed in what you're doing that you'll forget to go back to homework!

3. Turn off MSN/AIM/Mobile
+You can survive a couple of hours without your friends. Trust me. Oh, and that includes MySpace too! Nobody loves you that much!

4. Make lists
+Always make sure you write down when things are due, so there's no last minute panic!

5. Sacrifice
+Know how much time it takes you to write those 1667 words each day. Sacrifice that amount of TV/Internet time to do it. Nobody ever said NaNo was easy.

Hope that helps!

<3 Missupernatural.

I'm finding it quite difficult to be honest. I'm in my last year at university juggling a 12,000 word thesis as well as other work AND this.
Difficult, but coping...just :)

Two years ago, when I attempted NaNo for the first time (I didn't finish for story-related reasons), I was still in high school and had many classes. I wrote in every single break between them, and my social life suffered a little from this. I wrote when taking breaks from homework/studying. If your teachers won't give you trouble (mine were used to it / didn't notice), you can write or jot down notes during class (I'd suggest the latter so you can still pay attention to what is being said). You don't have to write full sentences then, just general ideas and keywords (or shorthand, for instance), and then turn that into full sentences when typing it up. It saves you time and you'll still feel like you're making progress.

I have tried doing this a few times as a high school student, and now I'm trying it as a college student. The way I found I could get a lot done if I set aside about an hour a day just to write. It helped me also get into the habit of writing every day, which helped me keep up writing outside of November.
Now in college, though, I'm kind of thinking that it will be a lot of help to try writing every day, but do a lot of my writing over the weekend when there isn't much going on.

Last year I managed OK but then again I stopped at about 30,000 words because I just lacked the motivation t continue. This year I'm taking my GCSEs and this month I've got Geography, History and Art coursework to do so I really don't know how I'd get any writing done if it wasn't for maths lesons which I spend writing or doodling whatever the time of year.

I'm having somewhat of a breakdown because suddenly there is a lot of uni work I've *got* to get done, assignment due in 2 weeks and then the masses of books I've got to read. BUT, I am going to keep on going and just take a big effort not to get stressed out. Going to write for an hour, do some work and then just alternate my tasks like that. Of course, uni must come first but NaNo is my reward for being a good student ^_^

Oooh...it's hard. I've got my exams of both school AND piano, plus trying to write a novel in a month!
But I just might be able to do it...

"The bravest man is not him who does not feel fear, but him who learns to control it"

I'm using this as my release, so to speak. I've found that just shutting myself away in the library at college, typing away like some kind of crazed maniac is really relaxing. I've only been back a day after the half term holiday and already teachers are baging on about how there's only seven weeks until the Christmas holidays and about twelve until the first set of A2 modules. At the moment, I'm balancing everything pretty well.

My friends are all used to seeing me scribbling stories down on piecs of paper and understand that I can be completely socially reclusive when it comes to my writing. Teachers have even begun to just leave me to it as well lol!

I'm 17 and I decided that I would join and challenge myself to write a 50,000 word novel in the middle of my final exams. So far I've managed to keep up between studying and writing but it's hard.
To make my quote up to date I had to write, write, write until I had a bit of a block and then study, study, study!
Good Luck to all of you
I hope you finish and maintain the juggling act!

womby
aka Oceana Setaysha

womby
aka Oceana Setaysha
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There is a fine line between genius and insanity... I have erased this line.