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Amy Strauch
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Write a novel in a month

Posted Thursday, November 15, 2007, at 12:18 PM
nanowrimo.org

For the second year I'm participating in NANOWRIMO aka National Novel Writing Month. Some might think it's silly to try to write 50,000 words in 30 days but I like writing novels and I thought I'd give it a try. Last year I also tried to fit in our local Christmas play Miracle on 34th street. Needless to say, I didn't make it halfway. The last week of November I wrote an average of 500 words a night between scenes. So here we are halfway through November and I'm currently at 16738 words and I'm somewhat stuck. I have a missing character and I'm needing to spend more time writing the how he went missing before I know how to get his sister to find him. I've got the when and where he was abducted but not the why. I have a possible why but I'm not sure about it. Anyhow, the back story isn't going to contribute to the total word count unless I can figure out how to fit it in. I don't see that happening. I've also got a book on order on how to write missin person stories. So far, I do like the story I've written.

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  • OH!

    Don't be too self-critical, sounds interesting from what you've shared here... isn't that the very thing, the unanswered question of "why" - that haunts so very many people who've had their love-ones go 'missing'?

    Best of luck to you in fiting it all together!

    -- Posted by doreenparsons on Thu, Nov 15, 2007, at 2:06 PM

  • I think you're doing great! When your plot gets stuck, maybe you need to spend some time writing non-plot related stuff to get the creative juices flowing: a family holiday flashback, a dream sequence, description of a store front, kids playing in a park, etc. Hang in there!

    -- Posted by shoma74 on Thu, Nov 15, 2007, at 5:47 PM

  • Maybe your blog-readers could give you suggestions as to why he was abducted. Maybe he was a studious accountant who found out that one of his clients was embezzeling funds from the parent-teacher's organization. So the client was trying to keep him quiet. (Accountants never get to be heros!)

    -- Posted by cowgurl1 on Thu, Nov 15, 2007, at 5:56 PM

  • Thanks for the support! The kid that's gone missing is a college student learning to be a physical therapist and was abducted from a bar he'd never been to before with an unusual regular crowd. Any more and I might give the story away, and the non-human characters that he's gotten involved with.

    -- Posted by amystrauch on Mon, Nov 19, 2007, at 4:30 PM

  • Update- 25 days in and I have 25000 words written. I am so behind. I came down with a cold wed (day before turkey), left for omaha thursday and came home today. I have 5000 words written since then. I'm feeling better but ain't over it yet. I'm still amazed how much I wrote despite the holiday shopping, spending time with the inlaws, and too much computer gaming.

    -- Posted by amystrauch on Sun, Nov 25, 2007, at 8:07 PM

  • Yup, it's all over. compared to last year I did better but I still didn't reach that lofty goal of 50K. I think I'll try again next year. Perhaps I'll have a better story that sparks my interest more. It's hard to swing all my hobbies and a full time job. Which is probably why I don't have kids yet.

    -- Posted by amystrauch on Sat, Dec 1, 2007, at 10:52 PM
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