Subscriber Frank Lestrosse sent me an email asking whether I think it's a good idea to participate in the "write a novel in a month" exercise that comes around every November. Yes and no (I'll be more specific in a moment!). Here are the positive aspects:
* It forces you to focus on your writing
* If you are precious about the number of words you can write in a session, this will help you overcome that
* If you do it along with friends in your area or online, it can be fun
Here are the negative aspects:
* If you start and then stop, you may feel worse about yourself
* The novel is not likely to be very good--frankly I doubt that it will be good enough to use as the basis of a rewrite that will eventually be good enough, but I could be wrong
* It uses up time that you could be spending on a project more likely to have a good outcome
My suggested solution:
* Tell people you are taking part, and ask them to help give you the writing time you need for it
* Put in the same amount of time you'd spend if you were actually writing an entire novel, but...
* Secretly (or openly) use the time to plot a novel and get done only as much as you can without a loss of quality. In practice, this may mean spending the first two weeks just plotting, the third week fleshing out your characters, and the final week writing the first chapter
* When people ask whether you managed to write the 50,000 words that the exercise expects, say no but you are really happy with what you achieved
* Take advantage of the momentum you have created for your book and continue to write a reasonable number of hours per week until it's done.
Good luck, and if you need some guidance, get a copy of my book, YOUR WRITING COACH, published by Nicholas Brealey.
