I am attempting to complete this year’s NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. I have 30 days to write a 50,000 word novel, and I really don’t have that much time to do it. As of this moment, I’ve written 200 words. Even though I have just started, I’ve realised that writing a novel is much, much harder work than writing a blog post. I thought writing a blog that has well over 100,000 words is pretty good practice. It’s not. The style of writing is completely different. I wouldn’t say I have writer’s block. I’m writing right now, aren’t I? Actually, I’m writing this quite quickly. I wrote 200 words of my novel in about 45 minutes. Maybe just starting the novel is hard work. It is a prologue I’m working on right now, after all. That’s mainly background information, no story.
Anyway, is anyone else participating in NaNoWriMo? If you are, then go ahead and add me as a writing buddy. My page is right here.
Hey I added you back!
Since this is your first year the biggest piece of advice I can give you is just don’t worry about what you write. Don’t over-think it and even if you ramble on for a bit and think that you could make things clearer/tighter…. don’t. One year I did this and just rambled FOREVER about one scene where I just described shit or gave the narrator some crazy internal dialogue.
NaNoWriMo is just a big exercise in getting the words out there, and then later you can go back and re-organize. What I usually do when I’m stuck is just to sit there for an hour, or play a CD, and tell myself that I have to write until it’s finished. Even if it’s crap.
Good luck!
Yeah, I’m realising that the more I think about what I’m writing, the slower I write. I have to get going quickly. Just type, let the story flow. I can go back later to rewrite it.
“I’ve realised that writing a novel is much, much harder work than writing a blog post. ”
One of the reasons my name will never be on a book of any form. I can hardly stayed focused on doing a blog post based on my 1st idea. Some posts meander WAY off the reservation
Good luck!!
Thanks. I’ve done very little in the way of writing. Just too busy. If I’m going to reach 50,000 words in one month, I have to seriously focus.
I once sat next to a fellow who’d written a book. When I said, “Hey, aren’t you the guy who wrote that amazing book about ——?” He nervously acknowledged it and did his best to disappear. Apparently, he was NOT interested in people who liked his work. At least, it seemed that way at the time.
I’ve heard that a lot of authors are pretty private people. Could be that he’s like that. Even the writers who go on tour to sign books lead a pretty quiet life.
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