Writing A Book In A Month, Part One

For thousands of writers all over the world, November means NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to start work on a novel on 1st November, with a goal of reaching a 50,000 word count by midnight on November 30th. 

If you’ve ever thought of writing a novel, NaNoWriMo is a great place to start. That unbreakable, unmistakeable deadline, coupled with a helpful website dedicated to this non-profit making enterprise, is a great way to turn ideas into words. In 2013, over 310,000 participants from all over the world made the leap from wishing to writing.  Sign up like they did, and you can get guidance, support, hints, and tips from professional writers and experienced participants via forums, email alerts and local groups. 

I'm coming in late to this game, and for a very special reason. My published novels (you can see them all here), whether historical or contemporary, come under the romantic fiction banner. I've always wanted to try something different, but I enjoy working in my familiar genres so I've never got around to branching out. My working life has always been very structured, but after attending a couple of RNA workshops (details here) I discovered the wonders of a free-form approach. Getting out of my writing comfort zone turned out to be less scary and more productive than I'd imagined.

November this year just happened to coincide with a gap in my work schedule, so last Monday I signed up for NaNoWriMo 2014. The process was easy. The prospect is chilling. All (!) you have to do is commit to writing a first draft of 50,000 words for your story, before the 30 November deadline. That works out at around 1,670 words per day. Every day. Once you’ve signed up, you start writing on November 1st. Each day, you log in to the NaNoWriMo site and update your word count on the header menu. It’s a stark measurement of your progress. I get stressed about reaching my usual10,000 word per week target as it is. Seeing my figures flagged up like that will really pile on the pressure. 

Everyone who reaches the 50,000 word target is a winner. From 20th November onwards, you can paste your completed novel into the NaNoWriMo site.  Once validated, you can apply for your winner's badge (the NaNoWriMo site allows you to scramble your text, so you don’t need to worry about security).

NaNoWriMo helps writers in all sorts of ways. There are forums where you can get support and inspiration from other sufferers (sorry, writers). There's even a section where you can pick up orphan plots, characters or settings suggested by other people, and generously offered to anyone who's stuck. The whole site is a well of inspiration, and a hub for networking. 

I’ve had a particular Alpha male living inside my head for quite a while, but he felt too damaged to be the hero of a classic romance. I knew he’d be locked away for a life sentence unless I found some way to free him on parole. Then my local chapter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association held a workshop where we each had to submit the first ten pages of a novel. These would be reviewed by all the other workshop members.  It felt like the right place to give him an airing, so I let my mind freewheel around the idea for a few days. In that time, my damaged hero solidified into a guy called Josh with a “dangerous" dog and a bad attitude. He met an anti-heroine, Sophia, whose backstory is even darker than his own. Then I sat down at the computer and fooled around with the pair of them until I had a sample long enough to submit to the workshop. 

The other writers thought my new project had a future, but a series of tight deadlines meant Inever got a chance to do anything more with those first ten pages. 

Luckily, I finished my current Work In Progress, His Majesty’s Secret Passion, in time to sign up for NaNoWriMo 2014. It's given me a concrete reason to devote one whole month to my new project. I’m raring to go, if a bit apprehensive. On the plus side, I’ve already got the first ten pages of my new novel, a folder full of character outlines and a general idea of what’s going to happen, to whom, and how.  On the minus side, typing “The End” seems a long way over the horizon, and it’ll be uphill all the way. 

I’ve cleared my diary, sharpened my pencils, and told the family I might be taking a holiday from the kitchen. If the words don’t come, we'll be living out of the freezer until December 1st.

Keep tabs on my progress by subscribing to my newsletter—just click on the subscribe button top right, or drop me a line at christinahollis(at)hotmail.co.uk.

Are you going to join NaNoWriMo 2014?