Hello November

By Karen Dums

Some may know and some may not know that November is National Novel Writing Month, for those of us in the "biz", NANO for short. But who wants to write an entire novel in just 30 days? It's sooo daunting. How can it be done? But wait...perhaps we need to do the math. Hmmm.

30 days. 50,000 words. By my calculations that's 1660 words a day. Doable? Let's investigate.

Say one can type 100 words a minute that's 6000 words in an hour. Wow.

Of course we must factor in thinking time. And perhaps we don't type but use the pen. And perhaps we won't be typing 100 words a minute even if we could still. Doable? Possible? Yes.

So do it.

Or not.

Do what some of us do. Set a goal.

I'm going to edit my most recent work.

I'm doing to rewrite that piece I abandoned long ago.

I'm going to read my novel aloud to check for cadence and flow.

I'm going to hit the books, find an agent, a publishing house, or maybe several, to submit to.
Ah but first I'd best tweak my query letter.

I'm going to fill up that space behind the blinking cursor.

There's more to writing than putting out as many words as you can in the shortest time possible. But it can be done.

Do it.

Or not.

Embrace it.

Here it comes.

Go...