Once again, I’m going to do National Novel Writing Month this November. I’ve been doing it off and on since 2005. I’ve only made it to the end and finished my novel once and that was 10 years ago. I’ve gotten frustrated and disappointed with myself when I haven’t finished, but this year, I’m going into it giving myself permission to not finish if I just can’t hack it. The attempt is more important than reaching the finish line. At the same time, I’m more determined than ever to finish. Here’s my plan for November:
- Start with no words written. This is starting completely fresh.
- This is a first draft. This is me telling myself a story, so don’t worry about what other people might think of it. Throw whatever’s in my head onto the page.
- Don’t get attached to the writing. Don’t worry if the writing is kind of (or very) sucky. Don’t edit while writing. Just keep moving forward.
- Don’t try to be original. Steal from anything and everything.
- Don’t think bigger than the month. This isn’t the first part of a multi-book epic. This isn’t going to win multiple awards and turned into a major motion picture. This isn’t even going to get me a publishing deal. I’m just doing it to do it.
- In the past, one of the big reasons why I’ve quit was because I was getting bored with the story. This year, if I start to get bored, just change the story to be less boring to me. Again, throw whatever’s in my head onto the page.
This also means this blog may be fairly (or completely) inactive during November. Which might be bad news for the 3 or 4 people who read it, but I’m sure they’ll cope.
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