AvantGuild: “Speed-Writing For Success” Or How Far Are You In Your NaNoWriMo Novel?

By Rachel Kaufman on November 2, 2009 12:29 PM

1) Yes, we realize that “novelist” is not a “job” in the sense that you go to work and sit at a desk and collect a paycheck and at the end of the year, your employer sends you a W-2. So just call us MediaGigsDaily if it bothers you.

2) Our interview with successful NaNoWriMo novelist Jessica Burkhart is up under “Book Keeping.”

An excerpt:

What’s it like, actually writing a novel in 30 days?
Writing a novel in 30 days was my first experience writing book length fiction. I had no idea going into it if I would even be able to complete a chapter or two. I had started as a freelance writer when I was about 14 and wrote for magazines like Girl’s Life. When i was 19, I heard about NaNoWriMo. I wondered, could I write a novel? Could I do that? Freelancing had started to feel stale for me, and I wanted to make a change.

I thought, ‘This is a 30-day investment, to see if I can do it.’ I felt overwhelmed at writing that length of a book; I’d been writing articles of 500 words, 1,200 words. My approach was to treat each chapter of my book as a freelance assignment, instead of thinking, ‘Oh, I have to write this entire giant book.’ [I thought,] ‘I’m gonna write 1,200 words, get that section done, and then move onto the next assignment.’ I was actually able to pull it off. I was a full-time college student while I was doing it. I was writing in class, I was writing between classes, at night, in the morning, and by the end of the month, I had the 50,000 words that I needed and a horrible, ugly, embarrassing draft of my first novel.

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