30 Day Novel: How to Write a Book in a Month

Misque Press Writing Guide for Fiction #1

by Tara Maya

The techniques here are designed to help you streamline your writing...and that includes not wasting your time on false starts or novels with huge, gaping plot holes that torment you during revisions. These are my best No Fail Formulas for starting or re-starting a new or broken novel, for kicking myself out of writer's block, and for making the most of every precious writing minute in a tight schedule.

This book will help you:

- write fast AND fabulous prose
- fix broken plots
- avoid false starts and meandering middles
- create endings that sizzle, not fizzle
- plan your wordcount to fit your book and genre
- painlessly add or cut words
- end writer’s block and recapture you love of writing...even during the tough spots

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

206 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 15, 2012

About the author

Tara Maya has lived in Africa, Europe and Asia. She's pounded sorghum with mortar and pestle in a little clay village where the jungle meets the desert, meditated in a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas and sailed the Volga river to a secret city that was once the heart of the Soviet space program. This first-hand experience, as well as research into the strange and piquant histories of lost civilizations, inspires her writing. Her terrible housekeeping, however, is entirely the fault of pixies.

Reviews

[Michelle Stockard Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this one. Great pointers and to the point, with some humor thrown in. Definitely will be referring back to it.

[Darlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book I'm going to have to read again and again. It is chock-full of ideas both light and serious in the art of writing.

As some of you might know I'm attempting to do JuNoWriMo. I hadn't planned on doing this but it been a while since I put out the effort for NaNoWriMo and I missed writing like that. Like what? You may ask. Like a crazy idiot who'd just vomits words. When ideas fly around your head and make you crazy. When plot-bunnies plot to kill you. Yeah, I'm not sure why I'm doing it either. And with two days of thunderstorms where the electricity goes out, I'm two days behind now. But I think I could make up two days.

I did one novel where I outlined the socks out of it long before I started writing in November. That book turned out to be the very best book I've written so far. So as much as I enjoy the creativity of seat-of-your-pants writing I like to have a bit of a plan as I go into it. Then if some crazy ideas take hold of me I know how to find my way back to the plan.

Tara Maya's 30 Day Novel works using outlines and storyboards and other great ideas. Some of these ideas I have tried before and they didn't work quite so well as I would've wanted. But she spells out the process in a way that I can understand and I may institute some of these ideas in my plans, maybe for November's novel. It's kind of too late for this one. Although if I get too far behind for JuNoWriMo, I may institute some of these ideas for Camp Nano in July.

This is a quick read and the author keeps it moving along. I highly recommend it to all writers to glean what they can from it.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives tips of how to write a book in 30 days using Seed Scenes, Beat Sheets, Rule of 3, Subplots, asking questions about your main characters or about what genre you are writing (romance, mystery, science fiction).

This is one book that I plan on reading a second time before NaNoWriMo starts so I can get a clearer sense of my novel. I recommend this book except the author's videos links in the Kindle book did not work. I also could not get them to work on the computer :(

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book may be better than I think it is. I've just been coming to the conclusion that, instead of talking about writing and reading about writing I NEED TO SHUT UP AND WRITE! I am done, Done, DONE with this kind of book.

[Steven Atwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great ideas!!

I am working on my next novel and Tara's ideas added some great tools for my writing kit bag. I loved her multilayered outlining process. Her methodology helped me find plot holes, etc. Thank you Tara for sharing this tips.

[Steven Jenkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great little guide to writing a book fast. I'll defintely be using it as a reference.

[Stella · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to stop procrastinating with these free kindle booklets...

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read. I love the troubleshooting tips for revision.