Published NaNo-Novelist Lydia Netzer on Shine Shine Shining Up Your Novel

Lydia Netzer sold her literary novel Shine Shine Shine and soared to stellar heights as a New York Times Notable Book for 2012, and an Amazon Best Books of the Month selection.  As part of our Now What? Months, Lydia took the time to tell us how NaNoWriMo failures can become literary masterworks with a little perseverance and revision: 

I am evidence that the benefits of NaNoWriMo are not always apparent! Sometimes the most embarrassing, hair-tearing failures can turn into winners—just not always on November 30.

I attempted NaNoWriMo twice with the story that eventually became Shine Shine Shine. The first time, it manifested as a novel about three sisters and their husbands. I got about halfway through the month on schedule, but my inability to stop editing brought me down and I did not finish.

I came away frustrated, convinced that NaNoWriMo should not be attempted with literary fiction. I told myself that this type of book needed stewing, pondering, getting one paragraph at a time on paper, and that the high speed devil-may-care production values of NaNoWriMo made it impossible to even draft the kind of book I wanted to write.

Still, I had learned from those two weeks of work that I was only interested in the middle sister in my story. While I had not “won,” I realized grudgingly that finding my main character was a significant milestone. I continued slow work on this “serious” book while successfully participating in two NaNoWriMo sessions; two YA fantasy novels were gleefully finished with hours to spare, and I was convinced I’d found the secret to success: genre.

But meanwhile Shine Shine Shine ground to a halt. There was a scene I knew was going to be dreadful to write. I just couldn’t get past it. Several drafts came and went, but the scene never worked. (For anyone who has read the book, this is the scene in the hospital when Sunny takes her mother off life support.) It was a charged, emotional moment in the book for me, and as an unpublished mother of young children with no pressure to finish and plenty to distract me, it was very easy for me to say “It’s too hard”.

Then November came, and I had a crazy idea. Maybe if I could start over on this novel and come at this scene with all kinds of NaNo-momentum and all my torches lit, I could get it written and move on. Five-thousand words came and went, ten-thousand words came and went, and then at 14K, I hit the scene. I can remember sitting there in my darkened dining room with my laptop on the table, feeling like both the team of horses and the coachman, flogging myself through it…

And I got it done.

With all the edits the book went through, that scene actually changed very little from that first draft. I know that the reason I was finally able to write it was the ethos of NaNoWriMo: Silence your inner editor. Don’t worry; just write. Go, go, go. It was counter-intuitive to the first conclusion I’d made about NaNoWriMo—instead of being wrong for literary content, NaNoWriMo gave me the freedom and urgency to push myself through without questioning every word. The speed-writing got me to a place I couldn’t get to via calm reflection.

It took me about nine more months to finish the book. I sent it to my agent, and she and I did a major structural revision (that hard scene didn’t stay at the 14,000-word mark), and we signed a contract. A few months later, she sold the book to St. Martin’s Press. My editor and agent and I sat down and hashed out another revision.

A lot of people frown on NaNoWriMo, believing it produces reams of garbage, and that writing quickly can only lead to writing poorly. We’ve all run into this attitude. Maybe we’ve had someone say “Why would you waste your time writing something you know will be bad?”

I respectfully disagree with these people, as I have found that during this mad dash, I find different layers of my projects that I would not have been pushed to uncover at a steady, reasonable pace. For busy people it’s permission to prioritize the work for just one month—to push aside other commitments during a limited time frame, and let the novel truly take over our brains. For a parent with young children, this can be life-saving. For anyone, the idea of participating in an event where so many are excited about writing is a heady rush. And it’s valuable. It’s something I will always want to experience again. I’m proud to show off Shine Shine Shine after its many drafts, its long history, its NaNoWriMo beginnings.

Lydia Netzer was born in Detroit and educated in the Midwest. She lives in Virginia with her two home-schooled children and math-making husband. When she isn’t teaching, reading, or writing her next novel, she plays the guitar in a rock band. Keep up with her:

On Facebook
On Twitter
At her blog

Author photo by Katie Weeks.

Wrimos, have you had novels that required multiple NaNoWriMos and/or revisions to successfully crack?