Novel November

As I spent November 2011 unemployed, I was looking for a project.

On the very last day of October I was pissing about on Twitter when one of the trending topics was NaNoWriMo.  Not knowing what this was, and being someone who gets all their news information from Twitter, I clicked on it and learned about National Novel Writing Month, a competition where you write an entire novel, all within the month of November.

They have different guidelines for young writers and they even provide kits for teachers who want to use NaNoWriMo in the classroom (and no, you don’t have to be an English teacher to get involved).  Young writers set their own realistic yet challenging goals (kids as young as 8 get involved) and have the same 30 November deadline as the rest of us.  Basically, if you can write, you can participate.

For adults, the goal is 50 thousand words.  Yes, 50 thousand, all in one month.  In order to reach this goal you’d have to write 1,667 words every day, or considerably more in the last week if you’re anything like me and pretty much gave away weeks 2 and 3.

I thought this sounded like an interesting project, and I was right.  I joined up, mainly to see if I could do it.  It took a lot of work, a lot of tea and a LOT of delete key.  But I got there, on the 30th I passed 50,000 words and I ended up with just over 51,100 in the end.

It’s not perfect, and don’t even bother asking if I’ll show it to you, but it is 50,000 words on the same subject, all written within the 30 days of November.

I learned a lot simply from being involved with the process.

1. I learned that I can write 50,000 words in 30 days, all basically related to the same subject.

2. I learned that planning is EVERYTHING.  I didn’t outline my book before 1 November and then I thought to myslf “any writing you do now surely shoud be towards the novel itself and outlining now will just slow you down.”  WRONG.  Around 30k I ran into blockage.  Major blockage.  I had a beginning and an end to my story, but not a heck of a lot going on in the middle.  And I couldn’t think of anything else to write.  Not one word. So

3. I learned to write through a block.  Just keep writing, no matter how crap you know what you are writing is.  Even if it doesn’t make sense.  Even if it’s pretentious shit.  Even if it’s copying what you already wrote, verbatim, and trying to expand. (Don’t worry, I deleted the duplicate words)

4. I learned about “sagging middles.”  That’s where the middle is boring and fails to hold the audience’s attention.  I actually came across this in a script writing blog, but the concept remains valid.  There’s lots of suggestions about how to avoid this out there: side plots, getting to know lesser characters, that sort of thing.  However, the main thing you need to do to keep your middle attention grabbing is make it so it increases the tension of the plot.  The protagonist should have more to lose after each chapter, each event, keeping the reader/ watcher more emotionally invested.  The only way to successfully execute this is to plan.

5. I learned (again) that the Internet is the enemy.  Full stop.  A tiny break leads to hours wasted.  A quick check of an e-mail changes what should have been 1,000 words to 100 words.  Set time for things like Internet, television, ex-cetera, and don’t, I repeat DO NOT deviate from the schedule or give in to temptation. Which leads me to point 5:

6. I learned that small excuses can lead to bigger excuses.  One of the motivational e-mails that came to me last month reminded me of this small but always true notion.  Saying “I’ll just check this one website” can lead to hours of surfing.  ”I’ll write after lunch” can lead to sitting in from of Two and a Half Men all afternoon.  ”It’s too cold in this room” a whole day gone.

7. I know it might not be in the spirit of the competition, but when I got stuck I wrote one or two passages which don’t particularly match the rest of the novel.  They’re all right and I could hammer them in if I had to, but given a further deadline or a lower word count, these would be the first to get the chop.  Then again, maybe the spirit of the competition is to just keep writing and by hook or by crook get to that 50k goal.

8. I learned to update the website.  I didn’t think this was important until I went into the site after the deadline to proudly declare I had written my 50,000 words only to find that you can’t enter anything after the deadline.  So it looks like I didn’t write a single word.  But I did.

All in all National Writing Month 2011 (International, I guess) was more of a learning experience than anything else.  But I think some of what I wrote is salvageable, even if it’s to a number of short stories.  I also think the lessons I learned will be invaluable to me next time I enter the competition, which I plan to do.