Are you spending too much time agonizing over every sentence of your novel? Do you have a deadline?
Thousands of writers are killing themselves right now over National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), trying to write 50,000 words in a month. A number of our readers are taking the challenge, including Jodi Vander Molen, The Writing Geek and Monica Flores.
Jodi weighed in with some overwhelmed thoughts: "I have heartburn. I find myself crunching word count numbers a lot. I usually write poetry, not exactly a quantity sport. What was I thinking?"
This is what I say--The beauty of NaNoWriMo is that you stop worrying about crafting perfect sentences and pitch-perfect dialogue. You just write and write, and let the novel figure itself out. That's a difficult, rewarding route that most writers never take.
Novelist J.A. Konrath is struggling to complete 50,000 words in 24 days--pounding out another installment of his Jack Daniels crime series. He has some words of wisdom for writers stuck in the early stages of the process, swamped by plotting. These are words to live by:
"Think about the worst thing that can happen. After you've written a character for a few dozen or hundred pages, and have gotten to know her like a family member, you're going to better understand her goals, fears, and motivations. Think about the most horrible thing that can happen to her, then make it happen."