How to write a novel

There's a great post over at Men With Pens today on the subject of writing a novel, entitled "How to Dig Up the Bones of Your Unwritten Novel." It's by Graham Strong, who blogs on a daily (!) basis at A Few Strong Words (get it?) about how his novel is progressing. He's currently on his second draft, so I'm definitely going to have to tune in and see if he's got helpful hints for me as I finish up my first draft, hopefully by the time Spring hits.

As far as my own novel goes, Naked Montreal has definitely become fun again, thanks to some suggestions from a new writing group I've joined (pending their two-meeting approval!), something that was lacking when I was trying to force myself to write too many words per day and really slog through it like some NaNoWriMo-esque word-count challenge.

As Graham mentions, while you should commit to writing every day, you shouldn't force yourself to write too much every day. He says he wrote only an hour each day on his first draft, which kept him interested in what he was writing and prevented burn-out. You wouldn't think a writer could burn out on something that's supposed to be fun, but I think he's right; if you view the process too much like work, you'll lose your muse. So keep writing, but don't overwrite and turn your wild and crazy first draft into something angina-inducing.

Oh, and speaking of inducing angina, my writer friend AV Flox has always used the phrase to describe things that drive her a bit crazy. I always assumed she'd write a book one day called "The Angina Monologues." So imagine my surprise when I saw this:

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Needless to say, she wasn't pleased when I told her of my discovery. Damn you, South Africa, for stealing AV's thunder!

Oh, and did you notice this author has another book called "The Karma Suture"? MEMO: The original is called the Kama Sutra and not the Karma Sutra. Playing on "sutra" vs. "suture" as an MD joke works, but mistaking "Kama" for "Karma" just makes you (and your editors, and publisher) look uneducated—and on a very easily Googled title.

So kids, if you want to write a novel, remember 3 things:

Write every day.
Don't OVERWRITE your first draft.
Clever titles can backfire, so pick one that makes you look subtly brilliant instead. Something like, say, Naked Montreal .

Follow these 3 simple steps and you'll be on the road to success in no time!