{"id":635,"date":"2015-11-11T01:27:20","date_gmt":"2015-11-11T01:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jessicaeblack.wordpress.com\/?p=635"},"modified":"2020-02-05T18:26:09","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T02:26:09","slug":"how-i-write-a-novel-with-suggestions-on-how-to-do-nanowrimo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jessicaeblack.org\/everythingelse\/2015\/11\/11\/how-i-write-a-novel-with-suggestions-on-how-to-do-nanowrimo\/","title":{"rendered":"How I write a novel (with suggestions on how to do nanowrimo)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How to write a novel… I was going to use On Writing<\/i> for a title, but then I remembered that Stephen King had taken it. In any case, my main purpose was to offer some suggestions on how to do Nanowrimo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"I<\/a>
I wrote my first nanowrimo book in Managua, Nicaragua. My children were 8 months and two and a half years old at the time.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Past<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I am doing nanowrimo 2015.  That is National Novel Writing Month<\/a>, always November (why not a 31 day  month??), when a lot of crazy people try to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s 1667 words a day with 10 to spare. At this point, November 10th, I am one day ahead of schedule. Why take valuable writing time to post a blog? Because people keep asking me how I do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some background<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I am a single mom who has gone back to university for a PhD in research psychology. I have a graduate assistantship that I am fulfilling by working on an external (to the psych department) grant that requires me to be in the office 20 hours\/week. Luckily I am not very busy right now (my stats supervisor has been too busy to give me instructions for a fancy modelling paradigm), although I have just been asked to work on a lit review of Dweck’s Mindset<\/a> paradigm. I guess it looked like I was too relaxed (sadly, my cubicle is right outside my boss’s office.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have two 3-hour graduate courses; both require 40-140 pages of reading a week. I have weekly meetings with my (main) advisor and stats\/grant advisor, and biweekly lab meetings. I have to coordiinate the running of one of my research projects, and this means organizing 5 undergrad RAs (luckily they are all super responsible and on top of it this semester).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then of course I have to chauffeur my sons to music lessons, orchestra rehearsals, soccer games and practice, riding lessons, 4H meetings, etc. I ride my own horse 3-4 times a week, and a friend’s horse once a week. Then there are those annoying little details involved in making sure there is food in the pantry and gas in the car, pets are fed, house is not full of cat hair…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, how does writing 1667 words\/day fit in?<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

I make it fit. There is always a way to do it. I’ve got the advantage of having done it many times before, so I have a method, and I am also fast (in previous years, I allowed two hours to write 1667 words. Now i can do it in one hour, as long as I am focused. Explanations and suggestion below.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"This<\/a>
This one was a future fiction I started in Madrid, Spain. I haven’t yet finished it (stuck around 100,000 words). I wrote it in a hotel bar while my children were in preschool.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
The Nanowrimo website<\/a> has some excellent suggestions. Here is what I recommend:<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
  1. Plan ahead. I start thinking about a novel weeks or months before I start writing it. I write character sketches and plot outlines. Sometimes this is very complicated; I’ve got over 100 pages of outlined “future of the world” that I wrote for one novel (not a nanowrimo project).