Thursday, November 13, 2014

Write A Novel In A Month


There's this thing. It's ca-razy. It's called National Novel Writing Month. NANOWRMO.org for short. And it happens every year during the month of November. Here's the one-line pitch: you write 1,667 words a day for 30 days and in the end you have 50,000 words of what could be a first draft of a novel.

NANOWRIMO started on the west coast. And even though it's called "National", it has gone international. You can see writers in the UK, India, and Australia, all cranking out words on the chart on the NANOWRIMO home page.

Whoever picked November to be the month to write an entire novel had to be a young dude. No middle-aged chick would pick the month in which you are going to have as many people as possible over to your house to eat a turkey dinner with multiple sides. It's not realistic.

Also, If I had been given the choice, I would've picked a month with 31 days. That way we could've spread the word count around a little. And let's face it, January is a slow month.

This is the third time I've attempted to play the NANOWRIMO game. Last year, I quit after 30,000 words. That is the closest I've ever come.

This year I've joined a group of writers at Savvy Authors to work together toward our goal. We spend a part of every day cheering each other on.

And then there's my manuscript. I'm not sure the 50,000 words I'm putting down on the page will make any sense. They certainly aren't in the right order.

I also wonder if I will have to rewrite an extra time because I wrote the original so fast.

None of this really matters. I'm just stalling before I start working on today's words.