November has been dubbed National Novel Writing Month. It is meant to be a month of totally literary abandon. Roughly 100,000 people have signed up this year, all with a goal of writing a (draft of a*) novel-or 50,000 words-in thirty days. Sound crazy? Well, it is a little crazy. And I am dead excited about it.
The first novel I ever finished (Glass) was written in a month (not in November, and not for anything like NaNoWriMo-it was just written in a month). The rush that comes with letting myself go to write so freely and quickly is not easily matched. I loved the exhilaration that came with it and I am excited to do it again.
So, in honor of NaNoWriMo, this week’s Teaser Tuesday features a little piece I wrote to prepare me to write Darken this month. This is not really a part of the novel; it is just a character exercise I took ten minutes to do in order to learn a little bit about Emily and Daniel. It is rough, but it told me what I needed to know. Enjoy!
I had my first crush on a boy when I was in the first grade. His name was Daniel Greiger and he was a slow reader. My teacher assigned me to tutor him. I thought I was in love.
In the fourth grade, when we both began piano lessons, I helped him learn to read music. For years, I crushed on Daniel. I stood in the shadows of all his popular, pretty girlfriends, hoping one day he would see me. He never did.
He never asked me out, never showed an interest. I was never more than “the smart girl who helped him out.” He was too busy chasing the girls with long legs and straight teeth to notice me. Long legs, straight teeth, and hair.
After all those years of pining for him, it is not a surprise that I thought of Daniel at the end. When the cancer finally won, and the light of my life began to darken, his face was the last thing I saw.
And then, when my eyes opened once more, his was the first face I saw. Standing before me was the boy who had always haunted my thoughts and dreams. And now I was to haunt him.
50,000 words is actually quite short for a novel, even a young adult one. It is definitely an admirable goal, but I have set my sights a little higher (call me stupid, I won’t be offended). I have a daily word goal of 2,500 words. I don’t write on Sundays, so with 25 writing days in November, this goal will help me produce 62,500 words, with is a pretty decent word count for a YA novel. I wrote at this same pace when writing Glass and found it really isn’t that hard to keep up with (as long as Bubba doesn’t need to see me 
). It will be a busy month of writing, but totally worth it.
*DRAFT is the key word here. Writing a novel in a month is a doable task. Writing, revising, editing, and polishing a novel until it can be considered DONE in a month? Not so much. The point of NaNoWriMo is not to write a perfect book, it is to get the words on the page. The real craft comes with the revisions.
2 Comments
Speaking of NaNoWriMo, I am going to zend you a leetil zomesing zomesing. Tell me what you think? I love your synopsis-that-is-only-kind-of-a-synopsis! So conflicted. It is entwining times five!
Oh yay! Zending me a leetil zomesing zomesing, eh? I like the sounds of this!