It’s that time of year again – nanowrimo, or National Novel Writing Month. Thousands of people are devoting the entire month of November to writing 50,000-word novels.

I don’t actually have a plan this year, or even an idea of what my novel will be about. I’m just going to fly by the seat of my […]

Last year I read Stephen King’s Book, On Writing. It was really good, as books about writing go. One of the things that stuck with me was that there is nothing new under the sun. There are no new ideas, just new combinations of ideas. He says to take two unrelated things, and combine them […]

GC and I are about to embark on National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo), which starts tomorrow and continues for all of November. The object of the exercise is to write the first draft of a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

Last year I had a plan. I knew what my novel was about: two people […]

Remember the novel I wrote in 18 days last November, as part of National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo)? Remember how all I could blog about all month was how crappy my novel was?

The thing about writing a novel that fast is that there’s no time for editing or even reading what you’ve already written. You […]

On Wednesday afternoon, after 18 days of frenetic writing, I finished my Nanowrimo novel! I typed my 50,000th word, completed the sentence, wrote THE END and exhaled deeply. Woohoo. I hit the word count button, and it said my novel was 50,023 words long.

I don’t know what I expected…some sort of hoopla, I guess. […]

My Nanowrimo novel continues to limp along. It’s up to 38,547 words now, or 101 paperback pages. If I were to choose one word to describe it, it would be “flaccid.” Lacking vigor or energy. Weak. Soft.

When you know your book is irredeemably bad, it’s hard to keep putting in the time and energy […]