Hello!

With the National Novel Writing Month event being in November, perhaps the end of September feels like an odd time to be writing about it but as the website has opened up for people to submit their 2023 projects and the ‘prep phase’ has begun, I’m actually thinking about this year’s project more than a week in advance!

I’ve been consistently creative writing since about 2008, took part in my first NaNoWriMo in 2011 and won in 2012, then tried again in dribs and drabs over the years but it was only in 2022 (amongst a surprising amount of life things!) that I managed to hit the 50,000 word target again. But I wasn’t writing a specific novel – last year was more a practise of actually writing again; letting myself get lost in words and go on that journey with characters, whether they were original to me or my imaginative take on pre-existing stories (I was rewatching Teen Wolf so there was a lot of YA werewolf writing).

But I wanted 2023 to be different – rather than writing to reach a certain goal every other month, I wanted to be more consistent so I decided to challenge myself to write 1000 words every week. Initially I had plans to stick with one idea and actually work on finishing one project but I’ve learnt that my brain doesn’t work like that and I didn’t need any reason to squash my creativity. So I have an ongoing doc that currently has bits and bobs of 20 different original ideas, a lil bit of fanfiction (Gilmore Girls and The Resident really got to me) and some other random notes have thus far amounted to over 65,000 words, well surpassing my annual goal of 1000 words a week.

So I’ve amended my plan.

I’m still writing a thousand words a week, but over October I want to fully plan a novel and for this year’s NaNoWriMo I’m going to actually write it – I really want to stick with one idea and actually finish it because if I could actually get a first draft finished? Maybe I could make this writing dream a reality. But that’s a lot further down the line.

How am I actually going to plan the novel?

Step 1 I think will be to go through the ideas I already have – some are just one line that I thought of randomly, some are a trope that I’d like to write and some are already pages of planning, characters and moments, so I need to establish which one not only had the most substance, but I like enough that I can commit to writing it for a whole month.

Step 2 is then to map out the basic premise – I don’t like to plan everything too intensely because 1) it’s less exciting to write and 2) if the characters take it a different way it’s more work to amend, so keeping things kind of vague but with a set point in mind is the way I’ve found works best for me.

Then Step 3 is figuring out how long I want it to be and how to break that down. In my first successful NaNo in 2012, I planned a 30 chapter novel so that every day I could write a chapter that was 1,667 words long and I could meet the daily word count, but then I had a novel that was almost exactly 50,000 words which, don’t get me wrong, is fantastic (particularly for a 16 year old who was taking her mock GCSE exams at the time) but is commercially a bit short. I’ve not quite figured this one out yet, because I’d love to end NaNo with a finished novel but if I want to aim for 80k-90k (a more standard novel length), I’m either going to have to write way more or accept that I won’t finish it in a month (which is kind of insane anyway).

I’m very driven by numbers – I love data and spreadsheets, I love my fitbit and step counts and wow you should see the spreadsheet I have for tracking my writing this year (I may not be an Excel expert but I know how to do some relatively basic maths). I think I might aim for a minimum of 1667 words per chapter (this is the minimum word count required each day to meet the goal) then if some are longer, great, if some are shorter it’ll probably work out in the long run.

I want to have the foundations ready so that when November 1st comes around, I’ll feel ready to dive in.

I’m excited by the prospect of actually finishing a project – I’ve been creative writing for about 15 years and although I finished a full novel when I was 16, I don’t really have anything to show for it (unless you’re impressed by a lot of fanfiction). With everything I’ve been through professionally in the last couple of years, writing has been a real comfort and the thought of potentially being able to do something with it gives me hope.

So I’m riding the wave! Any and all writing tips are welcome – especially about focusing on one project for an extended period of time!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx