This year I joined the #nanowrimo2021 challenge to complete a 50,000-word first draft during the month of November. And… I completed the challenge! I wrote 51,372 words on what might become my second released book.
Background on Completed Books I’ve Written
- Book 0 – the book that will never be released. I took a few scenes from this book and put them in #LameshaJuniorNovel
- #LameshaJuniorNovel – my finished manuscript that I hope to start querying soon
- Book 2 – the book that I drafted during November 2021
About Book 2
Book 2 has a title but I am not sure if it will stick. Its genre is contemporary adult fiction. The setting is Houston, TX. The book contains lots of family drama and secrets. It’s told from the perspective of a man and woman that share an interesting connection.
What I Learned
The closer that I got to my goal I reflected on my experience drafting this book. In this blog, I will detail a few things that I learned while writing the first draft of my book in 30 days.
Drafting Does Not Have to Be Perfect
In my previous blog, I wrote about my struggle to work on my draft without revising it. I spent the second day of the challenge rewriting what I’d written the first day. That caused me to be severely behind on the daily word count goal of 1,667 words. Giving myself permission to draft without worrying about whether I’d written the perfect scene was freeing. I know that I will have to revise anyway, so there was no point in trying to create the perfect draft.
Expect Things to Happen that We Cannot Control
I have extremely painful menstrual cycles. Though my periods usually prevent me from taking on strenuous tasks and can confine me to the bed, I thought I would be able to power through the pain and write in bed. The first day, I tried through tears to concentrate on my book and make something happen. But I could not. This was the time that I needed to listen to my body and just rest. So, I probably only wrote a thousand words while on my period. That seriously put me behind schedule.
I Should’ve Planned More
About halfway through the challenge, I realized that I should have planned more before beginning my draft. I thought it was sufficient to complete a character profile for my two main characters and sketch a few scenes that I’d envisioned for the book. But I started to feel lost. I had no idea where my characters were headed. So I took a day’s worth of writing time and wrote a brief outline for my book. By this point, I knew my characters more and understood the journey that they needed to take for this book.
I Did Not Always Make My Word Count
By November 22nd, I had only written 23,000 words. I had a spreadsheet detailing my word count and how many words I should have written if I wrote 1,667 words each day. Looking at that spreadsheet and realizing that I was more than 15,000 words behind was discouraging. I cried again, but I did not give up. I wrote 7,200 words one day! To put that in perspective, my previous record for most words written in a day was 2,300 words.
Some Days I Felt Discouraged
On November 29th, I had 6,000 words remaining. That was a doable goal, but I felt super stressed about not being finished. I saw other writers had already finished and some had written more than 50K words. Instead of working toward my own goal, I came close to giving up. My son overheard me talking to his dad about feeling discouraged, and he reminded me to do my best. That was just what I needed to hear. So I got back in my own lane and ran my own race to finish the challenge.
Would I Do It Again?
Maybe! Writing a book in 30 days is a very tough challenge. I will no longer take several months (with several long breaks) to write a first draft. I now know that I can complete this process in a shorter time span. Ideally, I would like to take a few weeks to thoroughly plan my book and six weeks to write the first draft of my next novel.
Questions
- Writers: How long does it take you to draft?
- Readers: What are you excited to read this season?
~ Lamesha