We’re half way through the timeline for NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month—and once again, I wasn’t able to take up the challenge of writing a whole book in 30 days. Fact is, I know I’ll never be able to do this in any November, and it niggles at the core of my competitive spirit.
November is my busiest month each year, what with spending so much time at Holiday Bazaars hawking my books and all, and I’ve never been able to try writing 1600 words each day, in order to end November with a full novel draft of 50,000 words.
Yet I’ve wanted to. And I’ve envied those who have managed to sustain the personal discipline it takes to accomplish this feat. (Note: Both “Water for Elephants” and “Fangirl” were written during NaNoWriMo!)
But in February/March of 2011, I did manage to whack out a whole novel by writing 1,000-2,000 words every single morning for 51 straight days. At the end of that time, I had a first draft of my cozy mystery with 62,000 words.
After resting it for a full 30 days, I edited and fine-tuned, and ended up with 72,500 words, most of which I actually like!
Two years later, I did it again, with roughly the same timeline, and now I have two “complete” books ready for publication… almost. Seems like every time I think I’m “done,” I think of something else that needs to be included in the first two books of the series to set up something I know is coming down the road in future books.
And therein lies the problem. The omniscient writer needs to know when enough is enough, and stop writing!