Hey everyone!
I have sort of an announcement to make…no–strike that! A challenge!
November is coming, and all you writers (either aspiring or published) know what November is:
I first heard of NaNoWriMo a few years ago, but this is the first time I’ve ever taken part. The mission of the program is to encourage people to write the first draft a 50,000 word novel between 12:01 a.m. November first and 11:59 p.m. November 30.
Can it be done? You bet.
Will your novel be perfect? Absolutely not.
Could there be some really good stuff in your first draft that you can make even better with your second? Almost always.
A lot of you write me emails or come up to me at conferences and say things like “I’d like to write a book someday, but every time I try it ends up sounding stupid.” And you know what I have to say to that? Join the freaking club.
Seriously.
Every writer I know has a box of really bad books (or, in my case, screenplays) hidden under a bed or in the back of the closet or something. I mean it, guys–we ALL have them! I like to call them “the dirty water books.”
What are the dirty water books, you might ask. Well, I’ll tell you.
You know how when a garden hose lays outside for too long without being used and then one day you turn on the water? You know how the water that comes out first is always dirty and rusty looking and full of spiders and leaves and stuff?
Well guess what? Writing is exactly the same way. What comes out first is ALWAYS the dirty water–full of nonsense and trash.
How do you get to the clean water? You let it run.
Same with writing. The only way to get to the good stuff is to just let the water run and run and run until the words start coming better and the story makes more sense and you know who your characters really, truly are at their cores.
The only way to find the center of the story is to let the water run.
So that’s what I’ll be doing this November. I plan on turning on the tap on November 1 and I expect a lot of trash to come out–but that’s okay.
A lot of extremely talented writers are going to be doing this with me, and if you want to join then I think that would be great as well. Sign up is free at www.nanowrimo.org.
AND…they have a junior NaNo program this year for you teens and pre-teens so…
Let that water run!
Oh, and just in case you’re wondering, I’ll be writing a little book called Gallagher Girls 3, so if you sign up and take part…we would technically be writing our books together.
Just in case you’re interested.
–Ally