I’ve participated in national novel writing month (nanowrimo) every year since I first signed up in 2005. I didn’t make it past the first week during those first three years, and I was having a hard time finishing more than my first book, which I wrote slowly off and on over several years and finished in 2004. As you might guess, I was beginning to doubt whether I’d ever write another book.
Then, in the summer of 2008, I began thinking about a world full of magic and other mythical creatures. The more I thought about this world, the more excited I became. I knew I had come up with an idea that captivated me enough that I might be able to write a full draft of another book and decided to give it a try in November, 2008’s national novel writing month.
Much to my surprise, it worked for me that time! I wrote 50,000 words in November, and continued on the draft in December until I had a full first draft of that book. I spent most of the next year editing and rewriting that book in fits and spurts, but the big difference this time was that I had a cohesive first draft, which made those rewrites easier.
I decided to go for the nano prize again in 2009 (the prize being a completed first draft of a novel). Much to my astonishment, I wrote far more than 50,000 words this time. In November 2009, I wrote 70,000 words of the first draft of a new novel, then did a quick and dirty rewrite of the first fifty pages and wrote a synopsis of the book which I submitted to a contest. Crazy, yes but I got the work done and was quite proud of myself.
I was also so exhausted at the end of the month that I took several weeks off from writing and rested and played in December by going to holiday parties, plays, and museums. But I digress, because my plan in this post was to talk about my nanowrimo experience.
I’ve discovered that each week in this four-week writing marathon has a unique set of attributes.
The first week: Enthusiasm. I think the first fifty pages of most books are the easiest. Once I get past page one (always the hardest), my fingers fly as ideas flow and I build a world and introduce characters and situations on the page. During 2009, this enthusiasm manifested itself as moments of pure joy, which I wrote about on November 8, 2009.
The second week: Doubt. As I move from the excitement of the character introductions and the action of the first act through at least one major plot twist that takes us into the second act, things get harder. This is when most of us writers start to worry about whether we are writing boring stuff (also known as a “sagging middle,” which is never a good thing). In regular writing times, this is where I might slow down or even stop as I consider minor, unplanned plot decisions before progressing. The nanowrimo experience doesn’t allow you to stop and ponder, so you write on in spite of the doubt. This year, I thought the second week was much, much harder than the first, but when I was done, I actually had written many more words in the second week than I had in the first.
The third week: Perseverence. Exhaustion begins to set in sometime around the end of the second week, and by the third week, I sometimes tell myself only X more days as I sit down with the laptop and begin writing that night’s scenes. Again, these are points where I would normally slow down to allow myself to think about the story and get enough sleep. Instead, because it is nanowrimo, I just keep writing late into the night every night. My third week total was my greatest of the month, with more than 23,000 words in a week. That was also the week I crossed the 50,000 word mark, and I kept writing even though I was tired and getting crankier by the day at work (yes, I worked full time every day throughout the month of November).
The fourth week: Excitement. By this point, I was past the 50,000 mark and well on my way to finishing the draft. The last couple days, I knew what scenes I had left to write in order to say “the end.” I loved those days! I also took a couple days off at Thanksgiving so that I could enjoy my family without the pressure of trying to write at night. I think I needed that break, but my brain was still running around in circles contemplating different aspects of the story even after I had stopped.
Week five: One last writing frenzy, followed by a celebration and sleep. The fifth week had one day this year. I spent that day reading and fixing the most egregious problems in my first fifty pages, then drafting the world’s fastest synopsis so that I could send the whole thing off to the Golden Heart Contest. I sent my entries off via FedEx then went to Constitution Hall to see the Pixies’ Doolittle tour — a fabulous way to unwind and celebrate my accomplishment.
