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Can you write a novel in a month?
NaNoWriMo is coming. That stands for National Novel Writing Month. It happens every year in November. A lot of people who are not professional writers start writing every day. They meet online, in coffee shops, in virtual writing rooms, and they support each other doing this crazy thing.
As a full-time, professional writer, I have a lot of opinions about NaNoWriMo.
First of all, the goal of NaNoWriMo is 50,000 words during a month. As a full-time writer, my regular monthly goal is 50K. So to me, writing 50K is a normal thing. It’s not a great effort.
However, I’ve always written a lot. Even when I had a day job, my goal was 3000 words per day, about 15–20K per week, and yes, about 50K per month.
So producing that much fiction isn’t that great of a stretch for me. YMMV.
Next. Before you decide to do NaNo, there are a few things I would ask you to think about.
Is this going to make the writing IMPORTANT?
Since you have to write a specific amount every day? That is one of the surest ways to kill your creative voice.
Writing isn’t work. Writing is play.
(If you really think that writing is work, you shouldn’t be a full-time writer or trying to do NaNo. Those…
