Lessons Learned from National Novel Writing Month

Yes. I agree on pretty much all counts. As a several-time NaNoWriMoer, I know it takes effort to get to that 50,000th word.I would also add: Don't worry about it being good or making sense. You can always go back later (after November) and tie up loose ends and add or subtract sections as needed. Good luck on your novel! I plan to focus more on shorter fiction pieces in the near future. 

Well if you get a good agent (since you probably don't have the time) you may be able to get a contract to finish enforce it's sold. Or you might have a blog where you do character back stories and excerpts if you're self-publishing. And ave you tried transcribing part of the book? Harder to edit but you can get the body faster.

i wouldn't know what genre to do. I went through phases from a teen until now having kids exiting their teens. At one point, I wanted to write along the lines of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, John Saul, Anne Rice and F. Paul Wilson. Then I had that martial arts phase, so I favored Eric Lustbader and Barry Eisler. Loved heroic fiction like David Gemmell. And enjoy Daniel Silva, Steve Berry, and David Baldacci.

Then I thought, what about some "boy growing up to be a man" book? That could be more personal, and I definitely had the tangents...but that felt a tad self-possessed, or folks just wouldn't read it (I'm just a normal guy that feels like he had several major decision points that shaped my life). And, it's anti-climatic by today's standards. I'm not rich...not famous...not dead - I'm just happy.

Kicking around doing more around my "Social Media Fitness" series based upon the parallels I drew with zone training.

Get my last daughter off to college in the Fall, and I might have time to crank 50,000 words a month - when the Broncos and Nuggets are not playing...and when I'm not playing tennis...or doing weekend getaways. SQUIRREL!

4.30am Whoa! My daughter got me up at 5 am the other day and that felt like hell!

When you put it into context like that: 50,000 words is only 100 pages, months and months of more writing - I know why I'm not writing a novel. It's certainly a great achievement though and I definitely need to read more fiction. I can't remember the last time I read a novel. :-)

This is very easy for you because you only need 2 hours of sleep a night. I need a solid 4.5. 

I agree, writing a novel would seem to be way harder than writing a business book. I'm amazed at what Mr.Brian @ExtremelyAvg  Meeks just did. He published something close to a chapter a day for 44 chapters. It was fun to read, got the heartbeat up, and it held together. I'm not sure if that's the ideal way to write a novel, but hats off to Brian. 

Anyone who wants a fun read, it's here: http://ow.ly/h0t5E 

I commented on it occasionally, and DM'd Brian for typos and such. So now I can say I helped edit a novel, and that's the closest I want to come to writing one. :) 

Oh, I heard you were a pretty good 'storyteller' all right.......your mother told me......

Send me that thing, I'll fix it up and shop that sumbich around; you'll be more famous than Bones. 

So if 50,000 is 100 pages, Stephen King's 11/22/63 must have been 425,000, huh? Hey, you're 99 pages ahead of me........

Good luck, can't wait to see the finished product. 

Gini, I think we all go into our first novel thinking, "this will be easy." Then we are all shocked and surprised how hard it is to write fiction, much less good fiction. Keep at it. You can't revise if you don't finish that first draft.

Thanks for the update! I am already unclear how you accomplish so much with your time. And now mention of a 4:30 alarm?!? You are a force of nature!

I heard the first Harry Potter was written in 18 days. The second one in just 22. Brian Solis wrote his last book in 12 days. Brogan? 6. I heard @dannybrown is spending just 4 on the influence book.

You should take my speed writing course. You are clearly are the superior story teller you just need clerical help!

Several of the published fiction novelists I know personally have a similar story, and it is one of four or five or six finished novels that never saw the light of day.

When I was competing seriously in judo, I had an instructor from Japan who used to say "do it correctly 100 times per day for 100 days."

Discipline. That's was National Novel Writing Month brings to the table - proof that you can write 1,500 or 2,000 words per day.

But the second part is the hard part. There's an adage - there is no good writing, only good rewriting.

Butt in chair discipline is part one. Editing discipline is part two, and not quite as sexy.

Good on ya for making a go of it. That's more than most people would do. Hey, I would argue that writing a business book is tougher. No room for BS there.