The Power of Saying No

It really means yes.

There’s a writing trick that’s rarely practiced, even though it consistently produces amazing results: saying no.

“It’s extremely powerful to say no; it’s really the most powerful thing to say,” said Bill Murray.

It’s extremely powerful because saying no is often really saying yes — to yourself.

Since we’re in the final stage of National Novel Writing Month, it’s important to remember the power of no. When we say yes to all of the other things calling us in life, whether it’s a dinner party we don’t really want to attend or a simple click onto social media for the latest on Olivia Wilde or Elon Musk, we might be saying yes to something else because we lack belief in ourselves.

It takes a strong belief in your creative work to say no to things in order to say yes to yourself.

I often say that NaNoWriMo’s goal and deadline approach is a creative midwife (quoting NaNoWriMo founder Chris Baty). That’s because in NaNoWriMo you have to say no to things to say yes to writing 1,667 words a day for 30 days.

To find the time to write a novel in a month, something has to give.

A time restriction of writing a novel in 30 days forces us to scrutinize the choices…