Goal Outline - Writing a Novel in 30 Days

So what is my next challenge? I will try to write a novel in 30 days. 50000 words is the goal of the National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) and I will try to participate.

If you know what the NaNoWriMo is you will probably notice that something must be wrong here because NaNoWriMo always takes place in November and now it’s almost December and this years event is nearly over. Well maybe you are new to my blog and haven’t read the ‚About this Blog‘ section, so I will state it again here, that I always post my blog-entries with a one month delay. This has several positive aspects. First of all it is easier to reach your goals if you don’t tell too many people. At least that is an idea that was stated in this TED video and I think this makes sense to me. The second and more practical reason is that with a one month delay I don’t put too much pressure on myself to write, edit and post my entries on a daily basis. I can scribble down some notes and write my blogposts comfortably on the weekend and have some space if something hinders me from blogging. This is really very helpful and I still get the result of a neat blog with regular updates.

So back to topic. If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, please check out the Website or Google it. There is a lot of info about it so I will not explain much. Basically the idea is to write a fictious piece of text with a length of 50000 words within the month of november. It is also a community experience but I must say that I’m not so much the kind of guy who is interested in the big community thing or the forums and stuff of the official NaNoWriMo but rather in the actual writing itself. I just registered because my challenge coincided with the official challenge so I thought I check it out and participate officially.

The idea for my novel is something I carry around with me for almost 10 years now. My viewpoint and the message that I would like to communicate has changed several times during all those years, but some basic concepts stayed with me. I have written a kind of storyboard for the main plot points long ago and also a detailed history of the events that take place before the actual story but as with so many so called writers I didn’t have the diligence to actually write the novel itself. I am also quite a perfectionist so I have always had my problems with finding character names or other small details and this slowed down any attempts to start at all.

Well, the concept of the NaNoWriMo is quantity and a rather punk rock approach. Just write and don’t think to much about details. Work with what you’ve got. You can edit later on. I like that idea because maybe this is the way to finally really write something. So wish me luck and I will give you daily updates how I master this new challenge.

by the way the pictures of this month will contain various book art I found on the internet and that appealed to me. Hope you like it.