What I Learned in November

It is true, what successful writers say about the writing process. 
To write a novel, one must have enough discipline to sacrifice other pleasures.

Stephanie Perkins puts it this way:

Novels aren’t written by muses who come down through the ceiling and shoot magic through your fingers and out onto your laptop’s keyboard. Before NaNoWriMo, some teensy part of me still believed that because writing is a creative act, it should feel easy. But fairies don’t write novels. They’re written with one simple equation: Time + Work = Novel 

Neil Gaiman puts it this way:

You write. That’s the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die. Writing may or may not be your salvation; it might or might not be your destiny. But that does not matter. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. 


And as Pat Rothfuss puts it:

1. Yay, Verily. You Must Sit Down and Write.

1a. Thou shalt not go see a movie instead. Or watch reality TV. Thou shalt write. No. Stop. You don’t need to clean out the fridge right now. Neither dost thou need to sort the recycling. I’m not even kidding. Go and write.

1b. Thou shalt not just think about writing. Seriously. That is not writing. The worst unpublished novel of all-time is better than the brilliant idea you have in your head. Why? Because the worst novel ever is written down. That means it’s a book, while your idea is just an idle fancy. My dog used to dream about chasing rabbits; she didn’t write a novel about chasing rabbits. There is a difference.

1c. Thou shalt not read, either. I know it’s book-related, but it’s not actually writing. Yes, even if it’s a book about how to write. Yes, even if you’re doing research. You can research later. Sit. Down. Write. P

So last November, I wrote. 

And I learned that Ms. Perkins, Mr. Gaiman, and Pat were soooo right. 

Here's my 2015 chart:




You'll notice my wordcount flatline on day 10. Even though I hadn't finished the Kostova, I went to book club. That loss of time plus post-wine lethargy led to a few late evening hours of organizing my thoughts, but no new words in the story. Skipping the actual writing taught me that even if I had to stay up past midnight to put in my time, skipping a day of writing is not worth the extra sleep.

My mother called what happened for me this past November "momentum," and she was right. Writing a novel is like jumping onto a moving train. You can't reach your destination without the courage to make the leap, every day. I have to thank Nanowrimo for pointing me in the direction of a slow but steady train. I didn't "win" the month, at only 40,000 words. But I love the story I am writing. And I love the writing of it.

Next up: An update.