Writing A Novel, 250 Words At A Time

I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. I did it in years past, "failed" it a couple of years, and didn't try at all last year. This year, I had the silly notion to use it to write something I've never done before: a Romance novel.

According to my impeccable reasoning, if I'm attempting something I have absolutely no practice in and no proven competence in, I have a license to fail. It's not only allowed to be of poor quality because it's NaNo, it nearly guaranteed to be of poor quality. How's that for taking off the pressure? It's like being dipped in Invulnerabilium or something.

So I'm having fun this year. And I'm keeping up with my word count.

Sometimes, it's hard. But you know what I do? Yes, the title of this post totally telegraphs the message: I tell myself I need to write 250 words. That's all, just 250 words. Sometimes that seems like a lot. Sometimes I do it one. word. at. a. time. But I seldom write just 250 words. Because the time comes when I count my words, and I have 276. If I have 276, I might as well try for 500. If I have 500, I might as well go for 1000. By that time, I'm nearly always on a roll, and I can exceed, hit, or come close to my word count.

I can't guarantee what I'll have when NaNo is over. It'll probably be an unusable mess.

But you know what? I don't really believe that. This is just too much fun to be a total loss.

Marian Allen
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