HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL IN 30 DAYS – 1

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought fleetingly about writing a novel.

If you google either NaNoWriMo or ‘How to write a novel in 30 days,’ you’ll get thousands of links, most of them helpful and many of them repetitions.

As a five-time ML (aka Volunteer and Motivational Leader) and seven-time winner of NaNoWriMo, I have observed and studied and experienced and come up with a list of things one can do to be able to write a novel this November. In the next few weeks, I shall share them with you so, come November you are fully equipped and excited to write your novel.

These tips would work for both first-time wrimos* as well as veteran wrimos. My sincere advice to first timers is: Just write that novel without getting bogged down with the technicalities. Write like how Rumi asks a lover to dance. Write as if no-one is watching (and really, that is the only way to write).

So, onto the tips for today:

• READ a lot
  Self-explanatory. Read in the genre that you love. Romance, literary, thrillers, paranormal, horror, fantasy, YA, sci-fi and/or a combination of these.

But also read a lot of non-fiction. Especially in subjects you are passionate about. My list includes (in no particular order): creativity, love, cooking (reading about it), spirituality, nutrition and marriage.

What subjects does your list include?

• LISTEN to people

Go out often, to crowded places (no dearth of them in our beloved country, no?). Eavesdrop on conversations, jot down interesting ones. Go to the garden, to the café, to the railway station, the airport, a deserted lane late in the evening and stand under the boughs of the bougainvillea, and write. Allow yourself to feel, allow yourself to write whatever wants to be written, don’t judge.

Heard something interesting lately? An interesting dialect/dialogue/turn of phrase?

• ALWAYS carry a small notebook

And make it a point to write something in it, everyday. Make it a habit. And the more you write, the more interesting will your writing become. Will you ever use what you are writing? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. But the quality of your writing will improve, that is a given.

Until next week, then.

And don’t forget to sign up at nanowrimo[dot]org if you haven’t already. Camp NaNoWriMo begins in July. Time to write that novel you always wanted to, right?

Single Post Navigation

← Older Entry

Newer Entry →