Fellow writers, we’re all in this together. And we all need encouragement from time to time.

Even if you’re not participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I thought you might enjoy snippets of the pep talks that are emailed to writers to help them keep going.

Be Encouraged!

A Pep Talk from Kate DiCamillo was about a guy at her day job who ridiculed her early writing efforts, but she fought back–by writing. (I really identified with her, having written to prove I could to everyone who told me to get a “real job.”) Her letter included:

It is a truly excellent to have someone to believe in you and your ability to write.

But I think it is just as helpful to have people who don’t believe in you, people who mock you, people who doubt you, people who enrage you. Fortunately, there is never a shortage of this type of person in the world.

So as you enter this month of writing, write for yourself. Write for the story. And write, also, for all of the people who doubt you. Write for all of those people who are not brave enough to try to do this grand and wondrous thing themselves. Let them motivate you.

The following is part of a Pep Talk from Lindsey, who ran into an emergency situation at the beginning of the month and was tempted to quit. It applies to any writer who has run into a life situation that has derailed them.

For those of you who have contemplated abandoning your novel—or already have—I invite you to sit down, look at your novel-in-progress, and envision a November without the rest of the story you’ve started. Imagine your laundry is folded, your pillow creased from adequate use, dinner is cooked, socks are matching, your shoes are shined… but no novel.

Here’s part of a message from Lani Diane Rich on “Having a Dream vs. Realizing a Dream”–and it might encourage you to try NaNoWriMo next year!

National Novel Writing Month changed my life. Because of NaNoWriMo, I became the first previously unpublished writer to get a book deal with a major New York publisher. Because of NaNoWriMo, I started taking myself seriously as a writer, and now I get to live my passion. I write, I teach writing, and I talk about writing—that’s my day job. But I honestly don’t know if I’d be where I am now if not for NaNoWriMo.

Do you have a really mean internal editor and critic? Then you’ll like what Karen Russell had to say about that…

Perhaps you, too, have a coach of the interior like mine—bald and cruel, shaking his sweaty pate at your sloth, ridiculing your sentences, professionally contemptuous. Extremely foul-mouthed. A definite misogynist. A voice that reads over your shoulder and snorts with derision at your characters’ dialogue. A voice in cahoots with every other voice that has ever criticized your efforts and ambitions and haircut. He pretends to be all kinds of things: the Voice of Reason, the Voice of Tough Love. But he is a tyrant. He is the enemy of fiction writing. His “pep talks” are actually spells of paralysis, designed to rob you of all confidence and happiness. In order to write your novel, you must get rid of this sadist. Do whatever it takes to shut him up. Chloroform him; drag him by his white Reebox behind the dugout; bury his shrill, censorious whistle. Then return to your green, blank, mercifully silent playing field, and write.

Time to Write!

Try to remember, when you hit periods of distress and discouragement with your writing, that it’s only part of being a working writer. Take the advice above and push on. You’ll be glad that you did!