A Novel Idea
I loved creative writing in school. It was the one subject where remembering facts, dates, formulae, et cetera didn’t matter. No right or wrong answers, just putting down on paper what was in my head. Sometimes my teachers thought I went a bit too far with my creativity, but I always considered that their problem. After all, what’s wrong with a story in which you travel to the moon, jump in a crater and find yourself at a Wham concert? Exactly.
And, I’ve continued to love it. Every now and again, I’d write a short story. In 2005, I began to write a novel, after an idea I’d got in 1999. It got as far as 19,000-odd words before I decided I didn’t know what was going to happen next, and since then, I just haven’t got around to working out any more of the plot.
In about 2006, I heard about NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that within the month of November, you write a novel. More precisely, a novel of at least 50,000 words. Fairly short for a novel, but a novel nontheless. The plot can be worked out before November 1st, and editing can be done after November 30th, but no writing must take place before November, and by the end of the month, at least 50,000 words are required.
There’s no prize other than pride and a nice little certificate to print out. The point, of course, is to get people writing – to give people like me, who’ve fancied the idea of writing a noivel for ages, the impetus to do it. Granted, one could do such a thing at any time of the year – but there’s something about a target set outside of your control that can spur you on, specifically if you have support from friends (you can have “Writing Buddies” in the manner of social network friends) and if you have support from the organisers (you get pep talks from writers and former winners). Just as a person who fancies running a marathon can benefit from this kind of support, so can a writer – after all, this is little more than a writing marathon.
This year, I thought I’d give it a go. Firstly, of course, I needed an idea. This came easily. In 2006, I’d had an idea about a story whereby some underdog/everyman type of protagonist, a librarian, is thrust into a quest for the Holy Grail, impelled his mysterious and beautiful boss – the grail being something quite different to what common folklore tells us. I’d had a go at writing something on this idea at the time of its inception, which never got past a page of A4. As the rules of NaNoWriMo stated that I couldn’t have written anything previously, I was going to have to start from scratch. Which was a good thing, as the original wasn’t that good, in my humble opinion.
As November 1st approached, little plot points would develop in my head. I’d worked out who the boss woman was, her motivations, et cetera, and got an idea as to how it was going to start. But…50,000 words? That seemed like quite a target. That averages at 1667 words per day. As a practice to see what effort that might require, I wrote this. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so bad. The question was whether or not I’d be able to sustain that over the 30 days – assuming I didn’t reach the end of the story early.
I began writing minutes after November began happening. In the first 24 hours, I got through about 2000-odd words. In the first week, I managed to carry on quite well, not always hitting my target but certainly moving steadily. I wrote in the hours I was at home; at other times I’d sketch the plot in a notebook if I had spare time but no access to my laptop.
After about a week, I had become practised at writing at length, and found that it came much more easily. Some days I’d get more than double the daily target. I’d normally be aware of what the next few chapters would need to be, and tried to get 1,500 to 2,000 words per chapter, which became easier to do as time went by. I was also feeling that I wan’t needing to plan as much of the plot in advance as I had done in the early stages – it wasn’t exactly writing itself, but it seemed to come more naturally.
By the third week, I was ahead of my target and each day becoming further ahead (which allowed me to have the odd day’s breather). My only worry, after about three weeks, was that the story wasn’t going to last for 50,000 words. I had about three more chapters that had to happen, and 7,000 words to go. But my naïvety as a writer proved a blessing – I realised that there was an important plot point that had not been explained. This allowed me to introduce two more chapters – one to explain it, making a minor character very much more important, and one related chapter to solve another plot qundary I was in. As a result, only death or serious illness was going to stop me finishing, as I was four or five days ahead of where I needed to be, with maybe 3,500 words needed out of three chapters.
I hit the 50,000 mark on a train to Derby. The magical word was “find”, though I only noticed that I’d surpassed this mark ten words late. It felt bloody good, though. The next day, November 26th, I finished in true author style – holed up in a hotel room with a “Do not disturb” sign on the door. 53,000+ words, according to the NaNoWriMo site (52,000+ according to Word – presumably as it doesn’t count hyphenations). Either way, 50,000 words was my bitch.
It’ll need polishing, of course. As yet, I haven’t had the time to go through it and find the mistakes, continuity errors and other anomalies that are bound to be there. I don’t flatter myself that it’ll make Stephen King worry about his living, but it’s my novel and I like it. I got to the 50,000 word mark and that’s all I wanted to do – to prove to myself that I could.
And I’d advise anyone who’s ever wanted to write a novel to try the same. Go on, what do you have to lose?
