National Novel Writing Month

Can you believe we are approaching November? What a strange year 2020 has been. Enemies of Doves released right as we went into lockdown in March. Since then, the days, weeks, and months have bled together, and we find ourselves with only two months left in this year that we are all ready to put behind us.

November is National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, for short. This internet-based challenge began in 1999. I first heard about it in 2001 and have been putting it off every year since. The NaNoWriMo challenge is to write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. For you non-math types like myself, that’s about 1,667 words a day for 30 days.

That’s. A. Lot. Of. Words. I’m a pretty slow writer. Enemies of Doves took me over three years to write and edit. (Five before it saw publication). I’m also easily distracted by social media, true crime podcasts, and children. When Enemies of Doves was released I had only written the outline and the first chapter of A River of Crows. In the following months, I added only a few more chapters. It was nearly impossible to market one book and write another.

At the end of August, I decided enough was enough. I was done spending hours a day marketing my debut. It was time to shift my focus to my second book. I was back at work; my kids were starting online learning, and there just weren’t enough hours in the day to market and write. It was time to shift from doves to crows.

I’m happy to report that in September and October, I’ve written about 42,000 words, putting my total word count at 51,000. I’m over halfway done. When members of a Facebook group I’m in for 2020 debut authors started talking about NaNoWriMo, I felt the tug to participate too.

Then I promptly talked myself out of it as I always do. As I have done for eighteen years. Work is anything but normal this year, and I come home exhausted. My kids need help with online work, and all the annual doctor and dentists appointments I canceled during summer are all falling in November. I even have two online events for Enemies of Doves. I felt to participate I’d just be setting myself up for failure.

But then I asked myself, what’s the worst thing that can happen? You don’t make your goal? Then what? Are they going to take your novel away and make you start over? No. At the very least, I’ll have more words than I started the month with, more words than I would have had without the motivation to make the 50,000-word count goal. I lose nothing by trying.

And the best-case scenario? I finish A River of Crows. Well, the first draft anyway.

I need to finish it. I know that the goal of authors is typically to have a book out every two years. It takes at least a year after you sign for your book to release. So, I’ve set a goal to have it ready to submit for publication by August 2021.

There’s a lot that has to happen between the first draft and submission. I’ll have to do at least two more drafts, send copies to my beta readers, and then prepare a final draft. Not to mention, the dreaded synopsis and query letter. In order to get all that done by August 2021, I needed to finish my first draft yesterday. 😜 I’m hopeful participating in this challenge will help along. I technically don’t even think I’ll need 50,000 words to finish it but will need at least 40,000.

So, I’ve made the pledge, created my account, and added some writer friends that are participating so we can cheer each other on.

I’m not exactly sure how long that word count will take to write each day, but I’m going to either get up an hour early to write or stay up an hour late. As I’m sure all parents can understand, I write best when my children are asleep.

I know I’m going to have to change my method just a bit. I know the rule of writing the first draft is just to write it and worry about editing later, but I don’t follow that exactly. My brain won’t let me move on until the chapters are “good enough” in my mind. Yes, they still need lots of work, but I can’t stand leaving blanks to fill in later or tons of red squiggly lines all over my document. So, what I normally do is write a chapter, then go back and do a quick edit of it before moving on. That quick edit is going to have to go out the window to meet my word count goal. So, I’m telling myself, just write, write, write in November then edit, edit, edit in December.

So, wish me luck and know if I’m MIA on social media or walk around looking like a zombie in November, you’ll know why. I’m pushing myself to write 50,000 words, or finish my novel, whichever comes first.

50,000 words is a lot, but it’s all worth it for a chance to write the two most exciting words for any writer…. “The End.”