I had a five part series on setting all planned out when I suddenly realized that in less than 20 days I will have to write a novel. This will be a 30 day writing extravaganza, snatching vignettes like cigarette breaks, sleeping on dictionaries, living with dialogue that will invade my every waking moment. This would be great - especially for a writer - except that I don't have a novel to write yet.
Oops.
I'm going to go ahead and show you how I plan my novel and I encourage you to play along. You can join the fun at nanowrimo.org. This site will connect you with nearly 200,000 other crazy writers who have all promised to attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.
That's only 1667 words per day!
If you write like me (occasionally forgetting that you've promised to write a novel in November) that's 8,000 words per weekend!
Remember the word attempt?
It's insane and grueling, but best of all, you have a ready made insane posse rooting for you by your side. Nanowrimo.org will also connect you with your home region so you can find groups near you to write in person (called write-ins) once or twice per week, with kick-off parties and Thank Goodness It's Over parties.
At the end, you have a pretty bad novel. It's basically word salad in some places, as your brain moves faster than your fingers and your ability to comprehend your native tongue. The brilliance of bad novels is that they give you so much to work with as we march forward to Nanoedmo (National Novel Editing Month) in March. Ahaha.
Even if you decide not to rescue your novel after November, you will have spent 30 days learning whether you work better alone or in a crowd, in silence or noise, in short sharp bursts or long marathon sessions spaced apart, with planning or with diving in head first.
Join me. It's great fun!
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