November is National Novel Writing Month. During the thirty days of November, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world set out to write an entire novel in a single month. This is my first year participating, and I'm already overwhelmed by the vast outpouring of support and enthusiasm. It's an exercise in literary excess, and as a book nut and full-time writer, I'm reveling in it. Here's the great thing: it isn't too late to join. And it isn't as hard as you might think. All you need to do is write 1,667 words per day, and by the end of the month, you have a 50,000 word manuscript. A rough draft of your very own novel. I urge you guys to check out the site and consider joining up. Many of you write more words than that in forum posts each day. I'd love to share the experience with you, hear what you're writing about, and help each other grow as storytellers. Here's the site: http://www.nanowrimo.org/ Here's a sample of what I put together on day one: http://www.hughhowey.com/?p=848 You can see how rough and unedited you can be with this rough draft. It's all about getting the story together. The smoothness comes from the editing, which is to follow. Good luck, if you decide to give it a try!
I just went over the 25,000 mark, which puts me halfway there on the fifth day. The story is really sucking me in, making me get up in the middle of the night to write notes and get started an hour earlier than I normally do. I've left the Molly Fyde series on the wayside as I power through this novel. At the rate I'm going, I'll have it finished by the middle of the month. Maybe I can get it edited before the 30th and have it ready to print by the time NaNoWriMo is over!
