Writing a NaNoWriMo novel

This is a Book Week guest post by http://www.bod-for-tea.blogspot.com/

Back in November 2008 I was newly pregnant and still in ‘I will be a baby-whispering-earth-mother’ mode. I was scared and excited and blissfully unaware of the whirlwind that motherhood would unleash into my life. So, with time on my hands I decided to finally give vent to my love of writing and have a go at bashing out a novel.

But I wasn’t going it alone on this novel-writing journey. No siree Bob. Thousands of other aspiring authors were right alongside me as we all jumped headlong into National Novel Writing Month, affectionately known as NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo is a month long writing frenzy. You sign up online on November 1st and promise faithfully to try your very best to cross the finish line in 30 days time with a novel under your belt. Thankfully for me, NaNoWriMo is all about quantity, not quality. The goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days, with a view to editing and polishing it afterwards. As the event’s website rather sucinctly points out;

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

Quite so. And write a lot of crap I did. ‘Bashing out a novel’ is a good description actually, as I spent most of the month bashing myself over the head and asking why oh why was I putting myself through this pain and anguish instead of enjoying my free time with a spot of shopping or a nice hot chocolate.

Some people just dive in without a lifebelt or any preparation and see what happens. If you’ve read any of my previous posts you’ll already know me as a type ‘A’, certified control freak, so of course there was preparation involved for me. I spent the last week on October outlining my characters, deciding my initial plot ideas and an overall theme for my novel – a thriller about environmental fraud, with lots of murders and sex thrown in for good measure. On 1st November I spent so much time on the forums reading other peoples plans for their novels that I almost didn’t make my daily word count. Everyday I added my total number of words to my profile at NaNoWriMo.org and watched my novel grow. Then I hit the wall at around a measly 10,000 words and almost jacked it all in. Apparently this is quite normal. I know this because every day a new friendly pep talk plopped into my inbox written by this or that published author to bolster my confidence and reassure me that while I was a total loon to take this challenge on, I wasn’t alone, and I could get through it.

And so I persevered and somewhere around the 20,000 word mark I actually started to enjoy myself. My characters started to do weird things and without the time on my side to edit their strange behaviour I just let them get on with it most of the time. Plot twists I hadn’t envisaged and relationships I never planned sprung up like leaks in an old hose. And it was fun! Well, most of the time. When I finally crossed the finish line at 50,000 I hated every inch of my laptop and keyboard and but I’d done it!

I had ambitious plans to edit it thoroughly and send it to publishers with visions of £££ dancing before my eyes . But first I wanted a break from it for a while, to let the creative juices settle down and have a nice nap. Unfortunately they seemed to slip into some sort of coma and I haven’t done a single thing with my novel since that very moment. Except let Tall Sis read it. There was a lot of red pen involved. And she was very kind.

NaNoWriMo was founded in 1999 by freelance writer Chris Baty along with 20 or so other crazy loons. He wrote a rather funny book about it too called ‘No Plot? No Problem!’ which became my official companion for this month long writing fest. There’s also an April Script Frenzy which is just about to start and a Young Writers Programme (held at the same time as NaNoWriMo). In 2010 200,000 participants took part in NaNoWriMo and more than 30,000 of them crossed the 50,000 word finish line. Impressive.

I’ll leave the last words on this to Chris Baty himself. All I can say is if you think you have a novel inside you, dive in this November and go for it.

Why should someone sign up for NaNoWriMo?Firstly, it’s an unbeatable way to get the first draft of a book written. The 30-day deadline helps you be less precious about every sentence, and forces you to make writing a priority in a way that you just don’t without the external structure that comes from things like taking a class or taking part in NaNoWriMo. On a less bookish note…One of the tough things about being an adult is that we don’t really give ourselves enough time to play. We’re busy with work or school or family. But we still need that creative time, and our imaginations are just as active as they were when we were younger. Writing a novel in a month is a great opportunity to reconnect with that spirit of play that brought us so much happiness when we were kids. Book-building just feels great. When you have a big creative project on your plate, you feel more awake and life is a lot more magical.

Quote courtesy of NaNoWriMo.org

Mummy @ Bod for tea blogs at http://www.bod-for-tea.blogspot.com/. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.