I'm doing 14 things
I wrote a novel-length (50,000 words) draft of a novel last month during National Novel Writing Month (nanawrimo.org). I still have probably another 10k words to go on the draft. I didn’t write the ending, but I know how it will end.
The exercise was just about “winning” or getting to the 50k word mark. It was really difficult, but here’s how I did it:
- I trained. A month before starting, I went to 750words.com daily and got in the habit of writing a daily target amount. To write 50k in a month, though, I had to write 1,667 words a day.
- I outlined. I had a rough outline of the plot mapped out, but I didn’t know how it would all come together—I let that happen in the writing. Also, I gave myself the freedom to deviate from the outline.
- I wrote early. Maybe writing late is better for some, but for me, writing early was best. If I could get my quota out of the way before I went to work, then I could let things gently bubble away in my head and get ready for the next day’s writing without feeling like I was getting behind.
- I kept a mostly steady pace. I tried to write at least 1,667 a day. We had a snow storm before Thanksgiving that knocked out power for two days and because I was writing on a computer, I couldn’t write. I had to really power through at the end, which was tough, but because I kept up I was able to do it.
- I sprinted. Word sprints are when you set a short time, like 15 or 20 minutes, and try to write as much as you can in that period. It’s a good way to shut off that internal editor and listen instead to the internal writer.
I’ve been thinking about the novel, but I haven’t done anything with it this month. I spent so much time working on it last month that I felt I needed a little break.
