Are you ready? NaNoWriMo less than a week away!
The marathon of writing is almost here. As you probably know, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The goal is to write an entire novel in one month – that’s 50,000 words! With only 30 days to complete your masterpiece you don’t have a lot of time (if any) to carefully think out your plot, characters, setting, etc. And forget about an outline. I think that’s the point of NaNoWriMo – turn off your inner critic and just write.
To be honest, all NaNoWriMo participants will write a lot of crap. That’s okay. Every writer, from bestselling authors to the writing working on his/her first short story will write a lot of crap until he/she can uncover the good stuff. I have written my share of lousy stories (crap!) with everything from cliches to mixed metaphors, spelling errors, grammatical errors and plots that go nowhere. Heck, I wrote an essay in college where I didn’t even finish a sentence, I just left it hanging. You name it, I’ve done it. This is all part of being a writer.
Don’t let that deter you. More than a handful of NaNoWriMo participants have had their novels picked up by major publishing houses. All you can do is give it your best. Even if your novel doesn’t get published, at least you can say you have a novel under your belt. And if you think your work has potential, polish it up, tweak it and keep on trying. A lot of successful novels were rejected many times before a publisher finally took a chance on them.
Shameless Advertising Time!
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If you’re planning on participating in NaNoWriMo leave a comment below on how you’re preparing for this writing marathon. If you have participated in the past, how was your experience? Were you successful in completing your novel on time? Share your stories from the trenches in the comments below. I look forward to hearing from you!
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