Novel Update #10 – NaNoWriMo

Here’s my Goal Check in from last month:

1. Status: I finished the villain arc edits! And they are deliciously evil.
2. Status: The witchcraft themes are loosely connected, but I wouldn’t say they’re done yet.

NaNoWriMo

November is NaNoWriMo, short for National Novel Writing Month. Here’s the crazy premise: You can write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Novice and accomplished authors around the world unite and get some serious writing done.

Is it insane? Yes. But does it work? Also yes. You see, everyone’s first draft is pure crap, that’s a given, but by completing a manuscript you have the basis of something you can revise…and revise…and revise again.

The novel I’m working on, Trouble the Water, took me six months to write the first draft and I’ve been revising it for a solid two years!! I will never be a Stephen King (64 novels, 5 non-fiction, 120 short stories and 20 novellas and counting) so I’ll just have to be me and keep editing until I feel good enough to share it with the world.

But I will be sharing it with three friends over December to get some feedback before I send it off for line editing in January. After that point I’ll be sending out agent query letters. If someone picks it up, I will feel validated. If I get a bunch of rejection letters I’ll be in good company.

A brief accounting of famous rejections before getting published: Harry Potter: 12 (need I say more?), Chicken Soup for the Soul: 144 , The Help: 60, Zen and The Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance: 121, Still Alice: 100 rejections – the author self-published and then it was picked up and turned into an Academy Award winning movie, James Patterson’s The Thomas Berryman Number: 31 rejections – it turned into the Alex Cross series.

If you ever wanted to write a novel but felt afraid, give it a try. If NaNoWriMo seems like something you are interested in, don’t feel obligated to wait until next November 1st to start. Pick the month of your choice and go for it! If you have a story to tell, someone will want to read it.

Here’s what I’m working on this month:

Already, I’m feeling like that December 1st goal is going to be shifted to like December 15…

See you next month!

Lisa 😉

Here’s my memoir:

 

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