Saturday 1 September 2012

Writing the November Book in a Month Novel



I have been going to do it for ages but November 1 rolls around each year and the calendar is usually full of the stuff of living and the preparations for Christmas. Usually it is a time when less writing gets done, not more.  Which goes to prove that  “ if you fail to plan, you plan to fail” as someone once wrote in advice to writers.
Fail? In the past, I didn’t get started.  November 1 is too late to decide what to write about. This year I am ready and I am clearing my life’s decks for a good solid month of writing.
Why am I going to cancel just about all social activity, cease house work  and hope it rains so I won’t have to water gardens?
Because I need a deadline.  I discovered that deadlines make it possible because without one, it is easy to let other stuff push the writing out of the way. So I am making it known that I am hibernating  in the writing cave during November, rather like the French novelist who told his friends to “consider me dead until October” whenever he was about to write a book.
By November 1, I will know my characters,  I will have exercised my ‘what if’ muscle and will have mapped out their journeys with enough flexibility to allow for surprises.  I might know the outcome, but once the journey begins who knows what will happen?
On November 1 at 6am  I will write the words… “…
But that would be getting ahead of myself. Let the planning begin.
I dare you.


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