I recently had an experience in France that felt like the kind of film I love. The setting: a bucolic place, such as the south of France or Italy. Think EM Forester films. A group of people gathers for a weekend. It seems like it should all be perfect, but of course, once you have people involved, nothing is perfect.
I came home thinking this was a good idea for a novel. It would have been easy to put this on the ‘to-write’ list. But November approached, and I knew I could dive in and swim my way toward the goal of 50,000 words in a month.
In this article, I will share how I surpassed that goal and what I gained from writing a shaggy draft of a novel.
How I drafted a novel in a month
Drafting 50,000 words in a month requires a lot of focus. I divided the main word count goal into a daily goal of around 2,000 words. My clients often use word count as a handrail to feel a sense of progress. That worked for me as well. I don’t believe in the ‘write a book in a weekend/week/month’ promises. But I believe in giving ourselves a specific, immediate deadline on a specific project. This pushes us past the idea that we can blow it off for a day or two. This tight ‘creativity chastity belt’ made it much easier to show up even when I didn’t want to. And honestly, I never ‘wanted’ to write.
Accept the complexities
Immediately, I shed the binary position of right or wrong. We like to polarize things. We like to have a good guy and a bad guy. It simplifies things. But life is nuanced if we let ourselves see its richness. But life is rarely that clear-cut. Instead, I appreciated the complexity of the situation.
Show up consistently
Like most of us, I prefer the easy stuff like laundry or reading library books. Especially in the last days when I had to write the more painful scenes. I really wanted to avoid writing then, but I wanted to meet my goal even more. On days I didn’t want to show up, I had to eke something out, even if it wasn’t my daily word count. I couldn’t let it all pile up at the end because that would be way harder than showing up every day for 30-60 minutes. This motivated me to show up every day. (Except for the week vacation in London, which I planned for.)
Use values when it gets tough
I used my values to help float me through the emotional waves. This gave me the chance to feel the pride and satisfaction of having done the work much more than I wanted to let myself down or not keep my word.
I engaged my top value of integrity/keeping my word through social accountability. I announced this project on Instagram and LinkedIn. I told my weekly writing group about it, too. When I asked my peeps to cheer me on at the end, they enthusiastically shared their belief that I could get across the finish line. Integrity, or doing what I say I will, wouldn’t even allow me to wiggle some writing out in December; no, it had to be finished in November.
Ignore the mental trash
Writing that many words in a month required me to ignore my mental trash completely. It demanded that I silence my insecurities about the quality of the work. That’s the point of NaNoWriMo, to just get words down. Sure, there will be a lot of editing in the second draft, but as Neil Gaiman says, “You can fix dialogue that isn’t quite there. You can fix the beginning of something. But you cannot fix nothingness, so you have to be brave. You have to just start.” I enjoy the revision phase of writing. It’s fun for me to dig in and wordsmith and to craft the story for a reader.
Lower the bar
I enjoyed letting go of having to produce anything ‘good’. Talk about liberation! I felt more empowered by honoring my value of integrity than by honoring my value of beauty/excellence. That can come later in the revision process. Initially, I wanted to be really ‘creative’ with how I told the story. And I saw how that got in the way of actually writing anything. It became a real treat to just write with the innocence of doing it for its own sake, not trying to be good or prove anything.
Expect no external payoff
I had to write this just for me. We often won’t commit to a big project unless we see some external reward at the end. Or hope that this project will enhance our standing with others. We hope to be published. Efficiency demands that our time be ‘well-spent’. But writing and art-making are not about pleasing others. Art that comes from a deep need to express doesn’t have the applause or the income as its target. It has an authenticity imperative instead. We need to honor what wants to come out. Later, we can craft it for the marketplace if that’s what’s wanted.
Keep a privacy shield up
The fear of hurting others is one of the top reasons writers censor themselves and never begin. I was writing about real people, and I needed to suspend concern over what they would think. I tell my clients never to censor themselves. To write what needs to be written and decide later how/when/with whom to share. I took my own medicine and felt the freedom to write what I wanted, not what I thought others would accept.
Benefits of writing this draft
Return to my creative writer
I write a lot – all the time. I write curricula, how-to books, articles, social media blips, and marketing copy. But it’s been a while since I wrote a creative work. After my novel came out ten years ago, I was convinced I was not a novelist. I have not had many ideas for stories other than the work I drafted about my experience in Portugal. So having an idea that I followed felt like a return to my writer self.
I had just come off a writing retreat I led in Paris. I participate in most of the things I lead, and I designed this workshop to get at the heart of what I wanted for myself, to know my writer. To honor my writer. And to connect with something I deeply wanted to write. The retreat worked on me! I came away with a book to write. I’m convinced this was the cause of the satisfaction I felt all month.
The themes honor my values
The themes of the book touched on things that I have been grappling with my whole life: belonging, reality versus fantasy, the need to connect, and the need to be alone. Writing this story unearthed those themes and gave me new insights on myself. This book reflected my deeper values, which reflect my values. The things we make that mean the most to us will have themes that honor our values. I teach this in my Creative DNA class. Even knowing this, writing from this deep place was therapeutic in ways I didn’t expect.
Savor the joy of writing
Right away, I felt benefits from the process of writing the story. I chose to write in the third person. This gave me objectivity and critical distance. Seeing myself as a character, I was able to have a broader perspective on myself and the others in the story.
Throughout the month of writing the book, I was buoyed up by an overriding sense of joy. Beyond the integrity value was the richness of honoring my creativity value. I get a lot of joy and creativity at work. But having a creative project fulfilled something beyond my values even. Writing and making art make me ME. Making things is my priority. Being an artist and writer is what I am here to do.
Devoting myself to this project allowed me to earn a sense of joy, a clearer sense of integrity, a therapeutic understanding of myself and my behavior, and so much more.
I hope that when a project surfaces in your consciousness that you follow it. Don’t worry about what others will think. Set aside the perfection and efficiency imperatives. Give yourself a solid deadline. Show up for it and stick with it through the tough parts. It will be worth it!
There is no greater cure for creative block than engaging in one specific project to its completion. You will gain so much from it, I promise.
What resonates with you of what I’ve shared here? Let me know what inspired you in a comment below.
