This is it.

The runner’s wall.

The do-or-die.

The "oh, God, why did I decide to do this?"

The 30k’s.

If you’re on schedule and have been doing roughly 1,667 word per day, then your novel should be at around 30,000 words, maybe even closing in on 40,000. It’s also the time when you’re legally allowed to pull your hair out in public and/or run around your college dorm screaming at your disobedient muse. It happens. Writers won’t deny it.

So, it’s week three, and the finish line is finally in sight. If you’re willing and mentally capable enough to keep going, then join us and finish strong. For now, here’s an (extremely small) writing break opportunity for you. Signs it’s Week 3 of National Novel Writing Month:

1. Every time someone asks ‘how’s your novel going?’ you laugh, then stare into the distance, then murmur ‘yes’ under your breath.

I think I’ve done this to three separate acquaintances so far in the last two days alone. People may or may not be starting to think we have all gone off the deep end. (Have we? It feels like it).

2. Your characters are doing everything wrong.

Every time you sit down to write a new chapter, it seems your cast is doing the exact opposite of what you want them to do. Sometimes they have only gone a few sentences off-note, other times they have taken the pitiful excuse for a plot you thought you had before and destroyed it—with fire or otherwise.

3. Diet and exercise are distant dreams.

You were able to stick to a basic routine of at least walking around when you had a spare moment, but seeing as you no longer have any spare moments, it’s hard to tell whether or not you’ve even moved in the last three days. Also, you are pretty sure you've had fast food for dinner every night this week, and maybe that's why you have been feeling sick. Anything to make time for writing, we say.

4. You are probably 85% coffee now.

It’s still mostly water, right?

5. At the very least, you can gaze at that beautiful progress bar.

It’s more than halfway full! You wrote those words, and they are more or less arranged to form a gorgeous novel. A real story with real characters doing real things and speaking real words. Few things match up to this part of the glory. Even if you haven’t shown it to anyone yet, and even if you think it’s not good, it’s still your novel and you’ve put down the better portion of something from your imagination into tangible words. You’re almost done accomplishing a lifelong dream.

6. Your word count is... all over the place.

Tens of thousands and climbing... nothing can stop us now. We may be exhausted, over-caffeinated sun-deprived creatures barely making it from one writing session to the next, but we are writers. And writers write. So keep doing that.

Now stop reading this and go back to your novel.