Chris Baty on NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month

50,000 words in 30 days.

Chris impressed me with the manner in which he shared his NaNoWriMo experiences. He was honest and outlined many of the problems writers face, such as procrastination, lack of  self confidence, and  commitment to write daily. Chris suggested we look on writing as an enjoyable thing to do, not as a chore, and it’s okay to write crap with no editing until the end of the manuscript. 

Writing a novel in a month gives you focus.  All you need to do is commit to write nearly 1,700 words every day, during the month of November.  Last year 119,000 people from 90 countries accepted the challenge and 21,000 of these completed a 50,000 word novel. 

A miraculous thing happens to people when they are given a deadline and write daily. You only need to read the last couple of paragraphs from the previous day before starting again. And you do not need to do any editing in the first draft. This can help you get over the idea that novel writing is a scary thing and, knowing that no one will read your completed manuscript, helps relieve the pressure of what you write. 

Everyday people who give themselves permission to write them write novels. Don’t think you can’t write a novel in 30 days. There will be some really good parts, there will be wonderful passages of language, and there will be parts of your novel that you do not remember writing. Your novel will also be crap in parts. It is important to get the first draft down on paper. The second draft is where the novel is born and you start to see it emerge. You can turn a bad first draft into a great novel, but you cannot turn anything from a blank page into a novel.

Lynette Stevens