Why I'm Renting a Castle for NaNoWriMo

Have you ever dreamed of taking a month-long writing retreat somewhere exotic and beautiful–say, perhaps, a castle in France? This year, a group of Wrimos is making it happen! Author Derek Murphy shares the reasons why he decided to go all-out this November–and how you could win a free stay in the castle next year!

A few years ago I wrote a defense of NaNoWriMo and #amwriting in response to an article griping about the devaluation of literature. In my post, I compared NaNoWriMo to endurance training: you have to force yourself to write quickly so you can get something finished, and move past the whispers of self-criticism that would otherwise slow you down.

At the time, I thought that NaNoWriMo was kind of like training wheels, and I’d moved past it. But I was wrong.

After publishing four books this year, I’ve come to appreciate some of the more subtle benefits of NaNoWriMo. I knew I wanted to do NaNoWriMo hard this year and finish at least one, possibly two books: and I wanted to do it with other people. Although I love the online support and community, I really wanted to live together with a group of hard-working writers, all writing our books, together, and doing nothing else. I wanted somewhere beautiful, spacious, historical and inspiring–so, I decided to rent a castle in southern France (it wasn’t as expensive as you might think).

The Grand Gesture Model

In Deep Work, Cal Newport introduces the “Grand Gesture” model of productivity, which involves doing something really big to keep you focused on accomplishing a goal. For example, J.K. Rowling checked into a suite at the 5-star Balmoral Hotel, down the street from the Edinburgh Castle–one of her inspirations for Hogwarts–to finish the 7th Harry Potter book; she didn’t plan to stay there, but got so much done she returned every day (paying $1000+ a day for the suite).

Just participating in NaNoWriMo can be the big thing that helps you accomplish your goal of writing a novel. Investing in a grand gesture encourages you to take advantage of the situation you’ve created for yourself, because otherwise you’d be wasting the time and money. It doesn’t have to be expensive: maybe your grand gesture is buying yourself some fancy clothes and wearing them every day while you write. Maybe it’s taking a long walk through the park to let your characters talk to each other. Maybe you invite everyone to a celebration party at the end of the month to share the novel you’ve written. Maybe you buy a nice pair of noise-cancelling headphones.

It should be something a little impractical, something that you don’t need, but something that makes you feel good and helps you concentrate on your writing.

Why a Castle?

A lot of people were skeptical of my idea. It seems like an extravagant, even foolish waste of money. Other writers tell me, “I can write anywhere. Location doesn’t make a huge difference.” And that might be true (although they’ve probably never lived in a castle for a month, so they don’t know whether or not they would be inspired to get more work done).

Extravagance in this case is kind of the point: most writers will measure ROI (return on investment) based on word count. But the 50K I write in the castle, I think, will be worth more than 50K I wrote elsewhere, because:

The relationships I make with other writers and authors have value.
Doing cool things that inspires writers is good for my author platform and visibility.

You are more than just the books you write: the story about the production of those books, your quirks and methods, your strange habits and hobbies, are all part of you author brand and can make it easier to find your readers. Sometimes, instead of asking people to share your book, you just have to give them something remarkable to talk about.

Renting a castle is important to me because I want to be the kind of writer who lives in castles and writes books for a living—it’s a big, affirmative step towards my ideal lifestyle. Of course my success will depend on whether or not readers like my books, but so far reviews have been good, so the most important thing for me to do now is to keep writing, using whatever tricks or tactics that get me to finish more pages.

This November, do whatever grand gesture you need to do to make your dreams become reality. Whether it’s totally unexpected, or something you’ve been aching to do for a long time; something you do with others or alone—set that big goal. Regardless of whether or not you finish your novel, you might just end up with the best story of your life.

You could write in a castle, too!

P.S. We’ve already started planning for next year, and will be giving away at least two free rooms. You can sign up here for your chance to join us in the castle for NaNoWriMo 2017!

Derek
Murphy is a book designer with a PhD in Literature who now writes young adult
fantasy novels and lives in castles. On his site www.creativindie.com, he publishes tips, tutorials and case-studies
to help authors publish better-looking books and build author platforms that
support a profitable writing career.