Can you really write a novel in 30 days? I have, more than once, thanks to Novel November (formerly Novel November (formerly NaNoWriMo)). These diary entries from the blog archives follow the whole adventure: the temptation, the theory, the word-count panic, and the November experiment on Wattpad that eventually became Feeding Frenzy. These days I write more slowly and deliberately, because it involves less editing. But what a ride it was.
Cute ad for Novel November (October 2007)
I got this cute "letter" from Novel November today. Go ahead, write a novel during the month of November. I can't stop you. I'll be too busy marking.We got this email today from your imagination. It was misaddressed to us, so we're sending it along to you. We hope it finds you well.
-----Original Message-----
Hello!
This is your imagination. I know work, school, and general craziness have been keeping us apart lately. But there's something we need to do together this November.
It's called National Novel Writing Month. For it, we'll bash out a 50,000-word novel, from scratch, in 30 days. You and me. Writing a book. Together.
I need you to sign us up. Because I don't have any arms.
http://www.Novel November.org
Love,
Your imagination
No Plot? No Problem! How to go crazy in 30 days (July 2008)
I wasn't supposed to do it. This summer I have so much to do. I promised the administration at my school that I'd have a musical written for the fall. I have guests coming from Sweden who will be in Canada for three weeks. I have my son home from school rather than in day camp so we can spend as much time as possible at the cottage. We had a family wedding with out-of-town guests from Peru visiting my brother and sister-in-law. The house needs painting, the cottage needs to be cleaned out and I have a young adult novel in manuscript form that needs a complete rewrite. A good summer's worth of activity, you might think. Make some time for beach reading too, right?So, what did I do? I decided to devote July to writing a brand new novel from scratch. Consider it a constructive way to avoid my other commitments.
It all started when I read No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days. I couldn't help myself. I've always wanted to do National Novel Writing Month (Novel November) but I'm usually too busy with school in the month of November. So, here I am, doing it in July. It's only committing to 1667 words a day. So far I'm a bit behind schedule (8300 words behind) but I'm sure I'll catch up. A a few good 25 page days should do it. Here are my stats so far:
- Amount to be written in order to spread the work out evenly: 1667 words per day.
- Most I've ever written in 72 hours: 30 000 words.
- Quantity, not quality, is the emphasis of the challenge so I won't be doing any more proofreading or editing
- I've fallen behind because I had to retype 40 pages of hand-written manuscript.
- Word count to date: 13 400.
- Total words needed by the end on Aug 1, 2008: 50 000 words.
Wish me good luck and happy reading.
Novel November in June (July 2008)
My one month to a 50 000 page 'novel,' (in length anyway) is almost over. According to the helpful schedule printed in No Plot No Problem (see previous) I should have written 30 006 words by the end of today. So far I have written 21 680, which is to say I am about four days behind.I have been spending much of July having fun with visitors (first my brother and sister-in-law's from Peru and now my husband's family from Sweden). Today is my big catch up day as the Swedish contingent will be at the Eaton Centre shopping.
What to do? I could head over to the site dedicated to doing National Novel Writing Month in July (http://julnowrimo.thewrigro.com/index.php) and try to find some good writerly advice or... Nah, in the words of my favorite podcasting writer, Mur Lafferty, "I should be writing."
Watch my progress at the top corner of the screen. Can I make it to 30 000 today????
I think I might make it to 6000 screen views today, without much fanfare. Will you be # 6000? Scroll down to the bottom of this page and see. Please leave me a message if you feel moved to, especially if you are #6000!
Catching up on the 31 day 'novel' (July 2008)
In case any one reads this and thinks I'm creating a fabulous artistic work in 31 days, rest assured, if I put that kind of pressure on myself, I'd never reach the 50 000 word mark. The good news so far is that I seem to be naturally creating a related 'A' story and 'B' story. Sub-plots have never been a strength so this comes as a great relief. It helps reach that mightly 50 000 word goal if you have more than one character's story to tell.I am supposed to have 30 000 words written by midnight tonight to be on schedule. I got woefully off-schedule last week, hanging out with my brother's visiting family from Peru at the cottage. This week there are visitors from Sweden, staying with my mother-in-law so I haven't been able to knock off my 1667 daily word quota regularly. For a couple of days, due to a cold plus the smog, I was too sick to write. I just wanted to sleep, cough and blow my nose. I never would have believed it could happen in Toronto.
To catch up, today I am doing a little marathon. Here are the number of words I have written so far:
21 680 (start)
23 905 (before lunch)
25 834 (by 2:33)
26 074 (by 2:45)
26 816 (by 4:35)
27 372 (by 5:00)
This works out, on my word processor, to about 134 pages, typed.
These may look like dull statistics to you, but when I'm working full-time in September, I want to be able to read this blog entry and know I have no excuse not to write more on the weekends!
Happy reading or writing, pick your poison!
Wild Singing Party (July 2008)
Yesterday I managed to catch up a couple of days on my word count, leaving me only 1000 words short of target for that date. Not bad considering I also took my son for a bike ride and some tennis and went to a wild, singing party in the evening. I think I was home by 2:00 am. Today, instead of getting up at 6:00 as I have been...Well, it was such a great party. The food and songs were Peruvian, the percussion instruments were all over the kitchen and there were kids everywhere shooting each other with little foam darts. I haven't had this much fun in a long time, and I'm very spoiled when it comes to entertainment. My only regret is I still don't speak enough Spanish to keep up with the conversations. I'm not bad making myself understood one-on-one but I often don't catch the replies on the first try. I also find my French vocab words try to creep in when I'm at a loss for a particular word. Necesito practicar...
Today we're probably off to Wonderland and I'm probably going to get behind on my word count again but it'll be well worth it. I'm so lucky that when my extended family get's together, it's both a great party and a cultural exchange.
Novel November Wattpad Experiment (November 2014)
October 31, I posted the teaser for a writing experiment on Wattpad. Feeding Frenzy is a Supernatural Thriller, and a great big narrative sandbox for me to play in. The nature of the Wattpad community is friendly, so it's a good place to find readers who appreciate humour and creative fun in their fiction.Over the course of 30 days, the goal of National Novel Writing Month (Novel November), is to write 50 000 words. Rough draft writing, random plot elements, and writing by the seat of one’s pants are encouraged. Anything to get up to the word count. Since I have done Novel November before, I added the new challenge of editing and posting at least one chapter to Wattpad weekly.
The experiment yielded some interesting results, including encouraging listings on Wattpad: #53 in Thriller/ Mystery and #69 in Paranormal. Not too bad for a book that isn’t finished yet. Of course the rankings in Wattpad change almost daily so from #53 the story fell out of the listing (out of the top 1000 novels), bounced back to 600-something when I posted chapter six, then dropped out of the top thousand again.
That’s not the important thing. This is:
Last weekend I was so behind on my word count, making quota seemed impossible. I wrote most of the day for two days, producing 12 000 words to catch up. With December here, it’s time to relax with the 50 000 word goal reached. The finished novel will be quite a bit longer. I’m spending a chunk of today sketching out the ending so I can keep putting my 5:00 a.m. writing sessions towards finishing the novel, as well as editing and posting to Wattpad.
The only way to upload something of quality, in my experience, is to make sure the writing of first draft stays well ahead of my Wattpad postings. That means I can go back and forth editing and changing the manuscript for readability and continuity.
Thanks to those of you on Wattpad, Twitter, FaceBook etc. who have encouraged me to keep going. I hope you will be inspired to take on your own fun creative projects, and that you will enjoy reading Feeding Frenzy. Here’s the link to read it for free on Wattpad.