Really, it’s a moot point for me to participate in the fun and games.  I average 5,000 words a day (a full chapter when seriously writing a novel draft.)  Which means I should be able to knock out two complete novels in 30 days (75,000 words-ish a each).  Yes, boys and girls, that means I can 150,000 readable words in a month–that was for those of you with low reading comprehension which will be the subject of a later post.  Really, for as much reading as a person must do in this age of the internet it’s appalling at the low comprehension level of grown (pre-dumbing down) adults!  But I am getting off on a tangent and this is about the fun of writing an insane mount of words.

So why is this such a big deal for aspiring novelist around the globe?  Despite what writing gurus will tell you there is a process to writing the perfect novel.

• Part One: The daydream phase. It usually starts out with the writer (that’s you) daydreaming about something fantastical happening to you.

• Part Two: The daydreamer realizes this is an impossible course of events so they make up characters to slip into the slots of the people already populating the story.

• Part Three:  Take it or leave it, but this should be the planning phase. I personally can’t do part three because my best work comes with about 1 minute of daydreaming, 10 minutes of character prep and 30 seconds of planning.  I usually have the beginning in huge omnimax visual in my head.  I usually have a tiny inkling of the cataclysmic ending.

• Part Four: Translating the visual in your head to the accursed plain white screen with the laughing, I mean, blinking courser in front of you.  This is where NaNoWriMo comes to the rescue.  There a many, many, way to many to count, people who believe they should be cranking out perfect first drafts.  IT DOESN”T HAPPEN!  There, now you know, so lock your internal editor in strong, titanium box and feed her scraps off the table (you don’t want to kill her, just shut her up for this process) and go back to your “blank” page and start typing. Maybe the words come easy and maybe they don’t, but write.  The story and your subconscious can’t build on what’s not there.

“But I have to edit while I write!” I hear the whining now.  Stop.  My kids whine less about more  important things.  You can’t because you won’t. Yep, that’s right, you can’t just blaze though a rough draft because you WON’T do it.

Think about this.

No novel was ever written perfectly on the first draft.

No novel. Meaning none for those comprehensive deficients out there.

Why take two years to write an imperfect drwaft?  Write the novel in 30 days or less (Yes, check your typing speed.) You should be capable of typing at least 30 words per minute.  That’s 1,800 words an hour.  Divide that by 2 for thinking time and you have 900 words an hour! In just two hours a day that’s 1,800 words or well on your way to a rough draft in 15 days!  Personally, I have too much other crap to do in a day so I aim my mark at 500 words in fifteen minutes.  2000 in an hour or a full chapter of 5,000-ish in 2 1/2 hours a day.

“But I can’t devote that much time!”

Come on people!  You’re dream is be a published author!  2 1/2 hours a day is 17 1/2 hours per week (no, you don’t get weekends and holidays off!)  That’s less then a part time job. Isn’t your dream worth at least that much time?

Get that difficult first draft out!

There!

Now you can move onto part 5

• Part Five: Editing.  Wait a month (or 12 if you prefer) and catch the little muse who has been jumping around your desk for the last month and gently (you have to be careful with her as her feels are easily hurt) and put her in a nice doll house room you created just for her.  Make sure to give her crayons and paper so she can get started on your next story when you go back to the titanium box you trapped the editor in.  Be careful when opening it. She’s ravenous!  Those table scraps were nearly enough to keep her satisfied during the last month.  Make sure you have a thick, juicy rough draft manuscript in hand to avoid being bitten!  She will take a long time to work though that manuscript, but when she’s done, she’ll have devoured all the “bad” parts of your rough draft.  Commented (and demanded) what needs to be change and what needs to say.

• Part Six:  The actual edit.  Now that your internal editor isn’t pissed off at you anymore, now you hack into your “baby” manuscript and work it until it’s a beautiful young novel ready for the next phase (This can take longer for some than it does others, but it’s where the bulk of your writing process should be as this is the process that will make the work publishable.)

• Part Seven:  Synopsis and Query letter.

• Part Eight:  Get that agent and submit your work

• Part Nine:  Start over while waiting to hear what’s going to happen with your first manuscript.

The writing process in a nut shell and why I get irritated with anyone who can’t won’t chill out and just get the draft done.  Really, the perfect novel happens faster this way.

Now if I could only motivate myself to edit faster. . .

Okay, so I’ve done it every year and every year I’ve produced not-a-block-buster. I’ve written 100 page scripts that aren’t any good, expect for maybe lining the bottom of a bird cage. No, seriously, I can write a 100,000 word bestseller (in my own head) in two weeks flat, and know that the story is kick ass with awesome characters, original story lines (If such a thing still exists) emotion, heart and all the wonderful things that will make the characters living in my head, appear alive to you as they get up off the page and nearly nick your nose with the tip of their sword.

So why do I do it if I am not even going to try to submit it anywhere? Well, because it’s fun. I LOVE to write, and it’s another creative outlet for me. One day I may find the time to work on my scripts for sale, but right now, I like to use them to spring board other ideas – like maybe another story that require magical wolves….

Get writing it’s only 3.5 pages per day from this point on. You can do it!
I use Celtx for all my script writing needs. The software is free. Just go to celtx.com and check it out.

I did it! I finally finished Spell Bound. Rune Savage and Clover Rossum are now happily together. Well, maybe not, you know, the ending is always so suspenseful in romance. Will they or will they not have their Happily Ever After? Is the writer sadistic enough to carry the reader though an entire 400 pages with the expectation of an eternal love, only to butcher the hero in the end? Leaving the oh so beautiful maiden sobbing over his grave?

Of course not, it’s romance.

It’s the reason so many women read them. (Yes, I am going to keep deluding myself that is the only reason to love romance, so please, don’t mention any other possible steamy or naughty reason [my mother reads this blog, you naughty person you!]) Because everyone has that happy fuzzy feeling at the end, even the ugly hunch back villainess who didn’t get the manly stud for herself, because she learned that real beauty comes from the “inside”. Then in a tragic twist of fate, this villainess woman gets into a horrific accident where she loses her hunch back, has a face lift, a boob job (Yes I said it) a tummy tuck, height reduction surgery (all heroines must be no taller than 5’3” while the man is at least a good 6’6”), and has all her crooked yellow teeth fixed into the perfect sized chompers in a pearly hue so the next over muscled play boy can come and sweep her off her feet in the second book of the series where the villain is a dangerously sexy man!

So……you guessed it, he can learn his lesson and fall madly in love with a door mouse in the final book of the series.

Okay, so where is this going other than apparently I am in Diva mode and feeling snarky and irritable? I have no idea. Its 3AM and I have to be up in a few hours, but am too excited to sleep! Go me! Maybe I should go play a game…..or, maybe……Law and Gypsy are calling……Magic bound awaits…….
Damn character voices…..they never shut up…..maybe that’s why I always have a headache? (No not that kind of headache! Ha! Yes, I do know what you were thinking. My husband is perfectly happy-TMI, I know.)

Okay, in all seriousness, I know I am making fun of a genre many love and not just women. It totals over 50% of all fiction sales. That’s a wonderful thing, but everyone should be able to poke fun at themselves and I hadn’t met my daily word quota since the last chapter ended up being a short chapter. Anyway, I am think I am going to shut-up now before I manage to get myself into trouble.

p.s. you know it’s bad when you want to call a frog a hopper in a novel.