Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Excuse me while I write a novel...

Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month? I didn't either until the November 2nd. I saw a little blurb in Self magazine about it and looked it up. Sure enough, all these people are writing novels in a month, and I joined them. The definition of novel on on the site is 50,000 words. Not a very long novel but all those words in a month makes for quite a bit of writing. I thought I was doing okay but then I read a post on the site that said "try to get to 15,000 words by Monday." I thought they were talking about the Monday approaching but it referenced the Monday the 10th. As of last night I'm only up to 6,088. And let me tell you, these are some of the most ridiculous sentences put on the page and the most incongruous plot ever. Seriously, embarrasingly ridiculous writing.

I've started several pieces of writing in the past but have never made it past a few pages because instead of working on the piece I start editing and thinking that I have no idea where the story is going and it just gets saved forever. The NaNoWriMo challenge is to just write, turn off the spell-check and grammar corrections and get words on paper. I've never approached writing this way and it has been kind of liberating to just get something out. This isn't going to be a Twilight phenom (btw -- downloaded the movie soundtrack the other night, great music) but at least I will have accomplished my goal of writing a novel before I turn 34 -- I'm really going to be 34 next May. No pressure or anything. I'll let you know if I ever have the guts to share it with anyone.

3 comments:

Torrie said...

i'll have to look into that book writing thing. recently i was told by several different people that i should write a 'how to' guide on being a mormon step mom. i'm tossing it around and think i'll wait till the step kids are grown up so i can see how many mistakes to NOT write about:)
good luck! can't wait to hear how it all turns out.
oh, and do you think jordan would like the twilight soundtrack? i need some cool christmas ideas for her, and i think you just gave me one! thanks!

Paige said...

I love the soundtrack even more now that I've heard it a few times, but I'm not a cool teenage girl so I'm not sure you should listen to me about that.

Unknown said...

Good for you! I did that book in a month thing once.

Ok, I did it for a few days. Then, you know, life grabbed me and I saw something shiny and never finished it.

I'd love to read what you're writing :)