Novel in November

Ok, so it's Nov 1. Time to start a novel.

First off, I'm NOT doing NaNoWriMo this year. As I've stated elsewhere I do want to write my first novel without the added pressure of an artificial goal on top of it. I'd much rather take my time on the first one as I'm still figuring out my process and what works for me. Also, I still have a novella and two short stories in various stages of completion and waiting on feedback, so I may be interrupted to work on those and get them out to be published (hopefully).

So what's the plan? Well, this week is going to be spent getting characters and plot squared away. I have an idea about what I want to do with both but need to get them written down so I have something concrete rather than the random fuzzy firings of my brain. Once I've got the characters sketched out I can get a rough idea of the plot for the book and then start writing to fill it in.

I don't know if this will ever get published. I may write this and then hide it somewhere to never be seen by others, or it may be the first thing of mine that actually gets published. All I know is that I have to do this, I have to do it now, and I have to keep at it. I want to be a writer, and the only way to do that is to write.

Remember, Remember, the month of November

OK, so we're into November and you know what that means?

Snow?!? WTF Mother Nature! (Yes, I actually saw a brief snowfall today, in Southern Ontario, shudder)

Nope, it means another chance to do NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month for those of you not familiar with the short form. The goal is to write a 50000 word novel in one month, that month of course being November. It means writing about 1666 a day, or lets just round it off to 2000 with a day off here or there. Let's put that into perspective. Robert J. Sawyer (yes, I like the guy- met him twice and both times he was pleasant and approachable), a professional author, writes an average of 2000 words a day, and that's his full time job. So the goal of NaNoWriMo is to have the quantitative output of a professional writer for at least one month.

Is this possible? I mean, most of us can't afford to spend all of our time writing. We have jobs to go to, errands to run, lives to live, etc. Heck, even the number of writers that only write and do nothing else is starting to diminish. So all in all, this is a daunting feat for many.

So, the question is, am I going to do NaNoWriMo this year? The short answer is No. The longer answer is No and stop bugging me about it! Seriously though, I'm not ready this year. I've just really gotten back into the writing swing, and my 500 words a day works for me right now. I hope to start bumping that number up and I have been developing better work habits. I'm less likely to wander away from the computer and watch TV. When I'm not writing I'm spending more time reading, which in the end will help my writing a great deal. I recently finished a book on Revision and Self Editing and my writing has improved from it. Just need to keep the improvements going.

Alright, I'm going to go out on a limb here. I'm going to make a public pledge in this blog to enter NaNoWriMo in 2010 and start work on my first novel. Until then, I'm going to keep on working on getting a short story published.