It's that Time of the Year!

Sit down. Start writing. I am itching to do that…to start something new. After a year of revising my psychological suspense novel, Net Switch, I’d love to jump into something fresh and different. I even have a title, but that’s it.

The fun month is approaching…National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)…a month where you sit your butt down and write your heart out. The goal is to write a novel of at least 50,000 words. It starts on November 1 and ends at midnight on November 30. There is worldwide  participation. You can sign up on their site at National Novel Writing Month. In the past, I’ve heard some people make it a family event in which they each attempt to write a novel. It’s a great way to write what you like, and utilize your time. Even if you don’t complete the task, you might have the meat for a great short story.

My novel came from my 2008 participation. I joined to see if I could do it—I did—and because of it I received a badge stating I was a “Winner NaNoWriMo 2008” (still on my blog). After that, I put it aside, happy that I accomplished writing 50,100 words in a month. But as fate would have it, someone read it and encouraged me to publish it. 

Three years later, over 75,000 words, my book will be in print just in time for the holiday season.

If you know of anyone with imagination and writing skills, or you want to challenge yourself to a creative competition, then I highly encourage you to signup now and put on your idea cap. It’s the perfect time to prepare for a month of writing—letting your imagination run wild. I’d love to know if anyone is interested in joining. 

I’m pretty busy with things going on in my life, but I can’t seem to ignore this writing itch. Maybe I'll be able to juggle it.

Scratch and create,

Bea

A Tale of Two Years

To celebrate National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I finally finished my first complete revision of the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2008. It cost me close to 2-years to get my butt going and revise it. For those of you who don’t know what NaNoWriMo is it’s a fun approach to writing. You sign up on the website and on November 1, you begin writing your story. The goal is to complete a 50,000-word novel by the end of November 30. During this time, you can post your progress on the site and encourage others while they encourage you.

I participated in 2008 and completed a 50,000-word novel, and the picture to this post is what I won. Most people think you walk away with prize money, but all you really walk away with is the knowledge of knowing you wrote a novel in one month. To some—like me—it’s a satisfying feeling.

So now what? You could ask someone to read it to see what they think, which is what I did. My Love, who at the time was just a friend, asked if he could read it. I shrugged and said ‘sure’. I had no plans to do anything with it until he read it within a few days and said he loved it. I thought, “Come on, it’s a mess”, but he thought it was great. He’s always been my biggest fan. Before I sent it to him, I prepared him for the mess, because wanting to complete 50,000 words in one month when you work full-time means turning off your internal editor. There is no time to clean-up or fix mistakes. NaNoWriMo helped me learn to write under pressure without going back and editing the crap out of everything I wrote. I was on a clear, direct path to finish and nothing was going to get in my way…and it didn’t. Coming into the last week of November, I still had to write 25,000 words to win and I freaked. How am I going to do that? Vacation days. I used vacation days to finish my 2008 NaNoWriMo.

Fast forward two years and here I am, working with an editor to clean it up. It isn’t a free revision—it costs to have someone do a line-by-line, but my Love convinced me it was worth it. After this revision, I will need to find a few proofreaders to go through it again…and then to go through it again until it’s error free…or at least close to it. Aside from this novel, I wrote my first one back in 2003, which is nicely tucked away in my drawer due to my poor writing.

I toast to those who are participating in the 2010 NaNoWriMo, and wish you all the best. It’s a great adventure, so write hard and TURN OFF YOUR INTERNAL EDITOR . Good luck!