by Heather Doyle Fraser

November was National Novel Writing Month. I hear people start to talk about this in late October, “November is National Novel Writing Month! I’m going to do it this year! I’m going to write my book in November!”

Let’s be clear about something from the outset, here. I think NaNoWriMo is awesome. I think it inspires people to think big and imagine a world where they are writing daily and that vision seems exciting and sexy, and also a little scary. And if you sign up for NaNoWriMo on their website — if you look around a little before November 1 — you will see that the good people who birthed this idea intend a few things:

Your planning of the novel needs to begin before November 1. In order to start tracking those words on November 1, you need to have created an outline and backstory for your characters BEFORE then. They have a timeline (and even that appears to be a little aggressive to me) that suggests you begin the process of outlining and character development in September.
You will write the first 50,000 words of your novel in November. That doesn’t mean you complete the writing of your book. That means you write the first draft of the first 50,000 words of your novel. This is a first draft of a portion of your novel — not a completed manuscript by the end of the month. (Average length of debut fiction novels is 75,000-90,000 words.)

Let’s do the math on this. If you are writing the first 50,000 words of your novel in the month of November and you start on November 1, that gives you 30 days. This means you are writing about 1665-1670 words every single day of the month. No days off. No exceptions made for, “I’m feeling uninspired and really quite cranky today.” No exceptions for, “I had a client crisis at the office this week and had to put in a couple of really long days at work.” No exceptions for, “I got a terrible cold and didn’t sleep well for a week.” No exceptions for, “My child is sick and I needed to rearrange my entire schedule to take care of them.”

No exceptions.

Unless you decide to take one or two days off each week at the outset. Then you have shortened your writing time. Let’s imagine that you allow yourself to take 6 days off of writing. That means on your 24 writing days you need to write 2,084 words in each writing session.

More pressure. That’s awesome for setting the stage for creativity and inspiration!

Let’s assume you started ahead of November 1 and you do have an outline and you have created a little backstory on the character development front. Let’s also assume, though, that you didn’t spend as much time on these parts of the process as you would have liked so you are feeling a little uncertain. And, let’s also assume that this is a new endeavor for you so you have not cultivated a consistent writing practice that has become a habit for you.

If you do not have a daily writing practice in place when you begin, your goal of writing 50,000 words of your novel in 30 days is going to be VERY difficult to achieve. This kind of writing requires practice, consistency, diligence, and a whole lot of self-compassion. Writing nearly 2000 words a day for 30 days takes high-level training! It requires you to set up your life to support your writing habit.

What does this mean?

Most people who want to write a book are not full-time writers. They have jobs, families, partners, and responsibilities that require their attention. So, they need to make space for writing like they make space for any truly important and value-based endeavor. They have to account for the time and plan for it, like you would plan to workout or exercise.

For example, let’s pretend you decide you should write your 2000 words first thing in the morning before work. if you are writing before work in the morning, you would need to make sure that everything is set the night before -- you have to be able to get to bed at a consistent and reasonable time to get up at a presumably unreasonable time to devote yourself to the writing practice before the rest of your responsibilities take center stage (work, adulting, etc.).

The thing people forget when they declare their intention to write a book in a month is that you need to train in order to be able to write nearly 2000 words a day. In order to write this many words consistently per day, you need to have been working up to that number. Your very first writing sessions shouldn’t even have a word count expectation associated with them in my opinion. At the beginning, time alone is your goal. You may not be able to guarantee a number of words at the beginning but you can control how long you sit in front of your laptop.

Just like exercise, this writing journey is a hard one when you feel alone. Even though writing is a solitary endeavor, though, you don’t need to feel alone. And writing in the same space with someone, having compassionate support, and accountability partners all makes this difficult task of writing easier. Doable. And that’s where NaNoWriMo gets it right – all of these people all over the world are engaged in the same challenging activity.

I would like to set the stage though for a more compassionate approach. First off, whether you are writing a non-fiction book (my specialty) or a novel, you need to spend the time upfront on the WHY, the WHO you need to be to write it and WHO you are writing to, the WHAT (hello book plan!), the HOW (What do you need to clear from your schedule? What decisions do you need to make upfront?) and the WHEN. Then you need to get into training mode – consistency is key!

Daily writing practice (or nearly daily) is not only what will help you finish your book, it will also help you to cultivate a deeper relationship with yourself and your writing. It’s pure gold.

So, if you didn’t finish your book in November, no worries! You didn’t have all the information upfront. You weren’t ready. Let’s take it slow and commit to 20 minutes per day, shall we? And if that sounds like too much for day 1, let’s commit to 15 minutes. In a week, you’ll be able to up the time a little just like you up your reps in the gym.

You can do this… If you want it. If you want to put in the time, day after day, over and over again. Let’s train together. Not for the sprint of one month, but for the long haul. Start now so when November 2022 comes around, you will be in the homestretch rather than behind before you even begin.

If you are looking for a safe place to practice, come join us at The Writing Practice. Learn more at https://mailchi.mp/cmcollab/the-writing-practice.