Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Obsession With NaNoWritMo

Well, it's done and over with. No, not Thanksgiving!

I am talking about Nanowritmo. What is it? It's where many people hopefully write a minimum of 55,000 words for a novel, durng November.

Mine was not the original one I started (but will finish this month), but another, an erotic urban fantasy.It has a title: Obsession. Whether, if accepted anywhere, it keeps that title, is another thing. It's dark and erotic, and has a werewolf hero and a human heroine. It has a werewolf villianess and a human villian. And the hero is obsessed with the heroine--hence the title. Due to the erotic content it will be by my pseudonym, Sapphire Phelan.

I mentioned to another author the other day, asking why Nanowrit is during November. At the end of the month is Thanksgiving and the approach of Christmas shopping--unfortunate real world things that can block a writer from her/his appointed goal. The first year I did this I finished. After that, I had manuscripts due, making it hard. The holidays didn't help, either. But this year, I finished beyond my expectations.

Now onto finishing it to be 80,000 to 90,000 words, then editing. But my obsession with Obsession is done--least for Nanowritmo. Just not for the rest.For writers who have not attempted this, do so. If nothing else, it will teach you to work toward a deadline, something you will have to do with publishers. And if you don't want to wait until Nanowritmo 2010, then in January start your own private Nanowritmo. After all, what is in January to stop your obsession?

For information on Nanowritmo, here is the website: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

1 comment:

DC Linford said...

I have begun to do Fast Drafts of two or three weeks with a specified daily word count due for two to three weeks in a row. I usually choose fifteen hundred to two thousand words per day.

More often than not the organizer has been Lena Austin (we used to be crit partners), but if you have to do it on your own, you're in great company. Stephen King demands 2K words from himself every single day.