Be Your Own Editor

A quick (and overdue) congrats to my friend W, who did, in fact, complete her National Novel Writing Month word-count goal in November. Yay! Is it a finished, publishable work? No. But she’s feeling good about producing some material she can work with, whether it becomes a novel or a few stories or whatever. You rock, W.

As for myself, I am officially designating January “National Chapter-Writing Month,” and I plan to complete the first chapter of my own novel by month’s end. I wrote several chapters during the “Finish a Draft of Your Novel in Three Months” class I took last summer, but, well, they sucked and need to be completely rewritten. Wish me luck! I’ll need it, especially since my Christmas stocking was filled with Barnes & Noble gift cards, so it’ll be hard not to spend the whole month reading.

By the way, sorry I’ve been lax in answering reader questions recently… I’ll get caught up soon, I promise!

You may have heard of an endeavor called National Novel Writing Month, affectionately referred to by its creators and participants as NaNoWriMo (unless they want to avoid sounding really goofy, in which case they refer to it as National Novel Writing Month).

The project is gaining popularity and notoriety every year, and since my friend W. is participating this year (the month in question, by the way, is November), I thought I’d take a closer look and think about how such exercises can help the struggling novelist.

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I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus while working on some non-blog writing of my own—or trying to, anyway. Most of you know how tough it is to find the time to make progress on a manuscript while juggling a job, friends and family, and a fabulous jet-setting lifestyle. Okay, scratch that last one (for me, anyway).

No matter what your lifestyle and responsibilities, it’s hard to be energized and productive when you’re not lucky enough to be a full-time writer. The most common piece of advice I hear from successful authors is “Write every day” or “Keep your butt in the chair” or something along those lines—but that’s easy for successful authors to say. Here are a few ideas that might help make it easier for you:

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