National Novel Writing Month—NaNoWriMo—is fast approaching. For the unfamiliar, the purpose of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November.
Signing up and participation is free.
The NaNoWriMo web site enables you to track your work, and to meet others in your community who have set the same goal. You can even designate writing buddies that you would encourage, and would encourage you, to meet the goal.
I should point out here that the goal is simply to write the novel. Whether it’s good, much less published, isn’t the goal here. In fact, there is a National Novel Editing Month in which you can commit to reviewing your work.
I’ve signed up on two occasions in recent years, and both times I fell short of the goal. I justified it at the time by citing other, employer-imposed deadlines or other commitments.
But recently I’m rereading a couple of books that encouraged me to try again. I share them with you here as you consider whether you’d like to write a novel of your own, and whether NaNoWriMo is for you.
In order by author, the books are:
Chris Baty, No Plot? No Problem! A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days.
Baty was struggling to complete his novel when he decided what he needed was a hard deadline. From this, he created NaNoWriMo.
His book gives sound advice on how to plan, start, and keep going. If you’ve not plotted, much less written, a novel in 30 days, Baty’s book is a good place to learn how to do it.
Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.
I like to joke that I enjoy reading Stephen King’s work when he’s not scaring me to death. Life is scary enough as it is. But King often tells people that to become a writer you have to read a lot and write a lot, and his book offers both useful suggestions for reading and writing exercises.
King does not outline, and while he has had great success doing things this way, I confess I still prefer at least a rudimentary outline. It’s always good to have a roadmap.
Even if you’re not planning on writing novels, or entering NaNoWriMo, these books can help you improve your writing. I highly recommended both.
