I’ve been struggling with Novel #2 for months. I finished the first draft of my first novel in six weeks, then took a little over a year to proof it, edit it, get opinions, etc. My thought was that, at that rate, I really could push myself to finish one a year.

And then there’s reality.

My honey battled cancer, I wanted vacation time, the chores needed to be done, I picked up freelance writing gigs for money and bylines.

It got busy FAST, and #2 took MONTHS to finish. I would start it, then not like the direction, so I’d save it and start again. I currently have six WIP (works in progress) that I don’t know if I’ll ever finish, but I’m keeping them around, just in case.

Well, I finally got serious this week because today (Nov. 1st) is the first day of National Novel Writing Month. I’ve been planning for this, writing an outline and developing character sketches, for a couple of months. The goal is to get a 1st draft of a novel done in 30 days (that’s 50,000 words). They make it clear that as part of this competition you will produce one horrible draft, but the point is to get the 1st draft on paper, not make it perfect.

I didn’t want to start this project with an unfinished one, so I get a small goal: 45,000 words for #2 before I start #3. I’m happy with that, because most publishers want your novel to be at least 50,000 words. I can already think of areas in #2 where I want to add a couple of pages of dialogue or description, but I’m trying not to go back and read it – I just want to get it done and proof it later. So I did that this week.

It’s not pretty, but it’s done. The last time I took a few weeks off before I picked up #1 to start revisions, so I’m going to take four weeks off with #2…and write #3.

Then I’ll have two novels to revise? Yeah. Not sure how that’s going to work, but I’ll give it a whirl!