Hello everyone! How have the first two days of July been for you? Hot? Yeah…hot, but so far so good I think.
If you don’t know National Novel Writing Month is officially in November however the organization (yes NaNoWriMo is an organization that does a lot of work besides host this fantastic event) also hosts camps in April and July every year. Which means this is day 2 of July camp! It’s free to sign up. You can set your goal however it pleases you; you can base it on number of hours writing or researching, number of words total and more. Typically official NaNoWriMo’s goal is to complete a novel in a month (yes this is a thing), or 50,000 words.
According to Wikipedia the average children’s chapter book is 16,000 words while the average mystery novel is about 60-80,000 words. Meanwhile the average thriller can often be over 100,000 words. If you estimate 250 words per page that would mean the average mystery novel is 240-320 pages, a thriller being 400+. Now I’ve never read a Brandon Sanderson novel but my understanding is that all of his books are long being at least 500 pages. That said all three of the All Souls trilogy books were nearly 600 pages. Let’s just say that big books are common to the fantasy genre, if you ask me.
While 50,000 words might not be a whole novel that is the general idea behind the competition. Mostly you’re competing with yourself although you are able to see other people’s stats. If you reach 50k by the end of November then you won! In that event you have the chance to receive some NaNoWriMo paraphernalia. I did not win last year but I did in 2017 when I first took my WIP (work in progress) on as a novel. In 2017 I got a sticker, a cool t-shirt, a little rubber bracelet and a few other little things. Best of all I got the bragging rights, yeah I wrote 50k words in a month (or 63k+ in my case).
Was that a novel? No, not even close. In fact I said I’d finish the first draft before the start of 2018. My goal for July camp is to finish the first draft.
In an older episode (maybe last November) of Death of A Thousand Cuts podcast, Tim Clare argued against participation in NaNoWriMo. Among other things he stated that you should be doing this regardless. You shouldn’t just write every day for 30 days because of some competition; if you’re a writer you will write every day because that’s what you do.
On the one hand I do agree with him. Absolutely you should be writing as much as you can because you’re a writer. Every time you write you’re practicing, exercising, putting your craft to work. You might not be a real writer if you only do it for NaNo, I’m sorry but I do believe that. However, I think NaNoWriMo is an excellent opportunity to catapult yourself and your project into a new stage of development. For myself NaNoWriMo was the kick off of my novel. My failure to focus and discipline myself to write no matter what is why it’s taken so long but NaNo gets credit for forcing me to take it to a new level.
The recommended daily word count for November was 1,667 words. This is so doable, at least for me, if it’s not for you don’t feel bad, do your thing. But seeing those numbers and that graph does something for me. On a good day I can easily write 3k in an hour. So why not? Having to write every day, or make up for a day missed, meant that I had to tell my inner editor to shush and let the words come out. Follow leads I doubt, listen to my creative brain as it tosses ideas at me, follow the rabbit into the hole of my imagination. Accept, and understand, that the first draft will likely not be excellent and that’s okay. But get those bones together. Get that foundation built. Then revise, revise, revise. Think about it, how often were you expected to only write one draft in school? Yup…
NaNoWriMo feeds the competitive me and it provides me with a tangible goal that I feel I must accomplish. I have to enter those darn numbers. I have to watch the graph rise!!!! Writing a novel, unless you’ve already been commissioned, is a self-propelled project, task, job, opportunity, experiment, you name it. It’s up to you. And that isn’t always an easy thing. That means you make your writing schedule. You have to find that time and take it seriously. Discipline is key. Commitment and focus are required. You are your boss. And NaNoWriMo is this sweet nugget of a month in which I kind of have a different boss when it comes to my writing. That helps me.
Thus it is nice to have the camps as well. I joined June 30th for July camp and on the 1st I wrote about 1,146 words. Not the daily target, but I’ll make up for it. My goal for July camp is to complete my first draft. Then in November I will work on revisions. Is this intimidating? Yes. Is it doable? Hell yes! I hope to publish my novel in 2020 so I have got to step up my game and kick ass!
Are you or have you done NaNoWriMo? Will you be joining this year? If you have any questions about my experience please ask. Let me know if you’re going to join camp or the official event in November. Another thing that’s great about this is the community. There’s a lot of dedicated writers out there who join NaNoWriMo every year. You can join a group in your area, physically or virtually. You can look for writing buddies to help hold you accountable. There are discussion forums and weekly e-mails of encouragement. There’s really A LOT going on with this organization. If you need a boost for a writing project I strongly recommend you at least look into NaNoWriMo and see if it works for you. Click the link in the last sentence or at the top of the post (there are links to NaNoWriMo & Camp). But do remember, it doesn’t stop there.
Cheers!
Stay tuned for this week’s response to a writing prompt and last week’s since I missed it. I’ll find and pick one at random. As well as a post about my latest TBR additions, what I’m currently reading and read, and maybe more. 😉
