Getting ready for NaNoWriMo

That’s National Novel Writing Month, although they are very hazy about which nation – anyone can join, wherever in the world you are. The goal is to write 50,000 words in the month of November. If you ‘win’, i.e. you hit the word count, you can get a free copy of your book printed. I first did this several years ago with a counter-factual historical novel about Jane Grey. It’s possible that this is still online somewhere if you have really good google-fu. But honestly, it’s not worth the time. Really not.

This year I’ve signed up for an Entangled NaNo Bootcamp. They’ve set up forums for each of their category imprints, with editors checking our synopses and various other tasks. I’m using it as motivation to get the historical romance that’s been in my head for ages finally out onto the page. If it works out they way I hope, I’ll submit it to the forthcoming historical line at Entangled: Scandalous.

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I’ve written my synopsis. I’ve even written an outline: the scene I plan to write each day. If I can make each scene around 2000 words long, I’ll have a full-length manuscript by the end of the month. If it’s a bit shorter, that’s okay. My first drafts are always too short, so I’ll be able to go through it again and work out where it needs more detail. In particular, I won’t have time to do all the historical research in November. I’ve done some, and it is an era that I know moderately well, but I anticipate there will be places where I’ll just need to stick in question marks and come back to it later.

I’m not abandoning Tom and Hattie (there is one update almost ready to go) but they may need to take a little break until December. We shall see.

It’s not too late to sign up for NaNoWriMo. Why not make this the year you finally write the novel you’ve always wanted to?