It’s that time of year where many of your friends who have any sort of writing ambition will begin gnashing their teeth and tearing their hair out. It’s November 1, the start of National Novel Writing Month. The next 30 days will involve lots of caffeine and heartache in order to crank out 50,000 words. (The editing part comes later, so “cranking it out” is not necessarily a misnomer.)

Writing a  50,000-word novel in 30 days is quite an accomplishment. Even if the book is crap, which a great majority of the novels written during this time will be, each writer can still say, “I did it!”

Last year was the first year I did it. When I was finished, I posted my list of 10 Things I Learned From NaNoWriMo. I couldn’t believe I finished it, especially since I had just under 5,500 words on November 14 and decided to start over on a different novel because the original one wasn’t getting anywhere. Instead of an average of 1,667 words a day, starting over meant I needed to average 3,125 words a day. On top of my client work. But I did it.

This year, I don’t intend to have to start over.

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? Comment here to let me know, and then find my NaNoWriMo writer profile so we can become writing buddies. No judgment when you read my novel info, please.

NaNoWriMo 2010 Begins Today is a post from: Christina Gleason - Founder of Phenomenal Content LLC

If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, you’re obviously not a writer. NaNoWriMo is the shorthand term for National Novel Writing Month, an annual event where aspiring novelists gear up to write an entire 50,000+ word novel in the month of November. It’s something I’d tried doing before, but always ended up dropping out before I’d really gotten started.

This year? I did it. And I feel like a masochist, especially since I started over on November 14. My first attempt had hit a dead end. I reached 50,086 words at 11:39 pm last night with 21 minutes to spare. So what have I learned?

1. Fiction is hard.
2. Characters don’t always do what you want them to do.
3. Knowing how the story ends doesn’t really help you get through the middle any easier.
4. The built-in thesaurus feature is awesome.
5. It’s insanely difficult not to edit as you’re writing.
6. It takes longer to write 1,000 words of fiction than 1,000 words of non-fiction.
7. Family members need to disappear when it’s writing time.
8. Asking me “How’s it coming?” when I’m in the middle of typing will make me lose my train of thought – and then get very angry at you.
9. Writing 5,000 words in a sitting turns your brain to mush.
10. It feels good to be done!

How about you? If you participated in NaNoWriMo, what did you learn – about writing and about yourself?

10 Lessons I Learned From NaNoWriMo is a post from: Christina Gleason - Founder of Phenomenal Content LLC