Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Novelling ahead.

So NaNoWriMo is just around the corner, and I've got an idea percolating.  I like it.  A lot.  It actually has potential to be a marketable story.  This is a VERY GOOD THING.  

For those of you unfamiliar with it, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, and the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.  This will be my fifth year trying, and I've 'won' in the past four years, though I have yet to fully finish the story by the end of the month.  I finished one novel (my first), and self-published it, just so I could hold the product of all that effort in my hands.  It was tripe, and I admit that, but it was a great feeling to know that I could finish something of that size.  

The next year I had a good idea, but it fizzled out around the end of the month, because I wrote myself into a corner.  The third year, I scrapped everything but the core idea from year two and tried again.  Unfortunately, that idea REALLY needs an outline, so it fizzled out again, around 53,000 words.  Last year, my story was pretty much entirely based on events that had happened in my life, and while it was very cathartic, I made the mistake of coming to terms with everything that had happened to me.  Accepting and forgiving most of those involved made it feel less important to finish the story and kill off the bad guys at the end.  And if they don't die... well, the novel isn't as good.

This year, I'm channelling my love of fairy tales, and I've spent all night online looking up princess stories.  Have I mentioned that, sometimes, I'm a five-year-old girl?  Plus, for my birthday, two friends bought me a princess hat.  They intended for me to wear it to the restaurant for dinner, but it's going to sit at my computer to inspire me next month.

Oh, and I got a red Moleskin and a red pen, so I'm totally inspired to write!  I'm all about having special notebooks for different writing projects - "Take Five" is being written in a black Moleskin with navy blue ink, then transcribed into my blog.  I've got a lot of notebooks sitting around...

5 comments:

colbymarshall said...

WHat I don't understand about NaNo particularly is why the goal is 50k...cause unless its YA, thats way lower than the 80-100k most agents will look at. *Shrugs* who knows!

MJ said...

Oh wow! Good luck! I think I am far too ADD to ever sit down and write that much at one time and about one subject.

Danielle said...

The 50K goal mostly to be manageable. 100k in a month is, well, almost impossible for people who are doing this for fun. For those of you who are lucky enough to make a living at it, it's a possibility, but most Wrimos are holding down full-time jobs on top of writing the novel. Plus, it gets you in the habit of writing every day, and by the end of the month, you've often got enough momentum to keep on going until you have a full-length novel. Or you put it away for six months, and try again in the summer :)

colbymarshall said...

Ok, maybe I should rephrase- I understand the concept of NaNo and it's purpose...I don't understand how they arrived at the random figure of 50k. I don’t know; I get that most people writing also have a full-time job, but even so, it just seems like anyone would write a better book carefully doing just 1k a day at a time over three months than forcing yourself to write insanely for one month. I know a lot of writers do it, so more power to you guys who love it, but I'm just saying for me, it's not my "thang." :-)

colbymarshall said...

and by the way, there ain't no way I'm writing 100k in a month, lol...I'd go into shock, I think.