Persistence

"If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying. "Here comes number seventy-one!" Richard M. Devos

Persistence. Determination. The will to endure.

Most of the time success in writing is being like the tortoise: “Slow and steady wins the race.”

Write every day for a period of time you can sustain barring only a major crisis. It builds a habit that will carry you through the rough days. Your writing will be more consistent. You won’t burn out as easily as you can on a weekend writing binge.

Although NaNoWriMo may feel like a month-long binge, 1600 words a day isn’t an excessive amount for anyone who writes to publish. Think of NaNo as tortoise boot camp. The key is to write every day. If you do, by the end of the month you will have established a habit that will continue, even if your word count during ‘normal’ times isn’t as high.