It’s been a crazy week of book stuff and I’m loving it!
First of all, my second book, Three Girls and a Wedding, was released last week for kindle, nook and in paperback. I’ve been getting some good feedback from readers, which is always fun. I’m really excited for more people to read it and share their impressions with me.
But there’s no laurel resting, not for this girl. I’m on a mission to take over the world (through chicklit), and there’s no stopping me now! That is why, on November 1st, just 5 days after the release of Three Girls and Wedding, I started work on the final book of the series. That’s a pretty quick turn around but there’s a reason to my madness.
It’s NaNoWriMo time, baby!
What’s NaNoWriMo you ask? Well, you could head here to read all about it, but I’ll explain it for you briefly: NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) is a really cool program started to encourage people to write a novel (at least 50,000 words) in a month. The goal of the program is not necesarily to create something publishing worthy, but rather to get people to turn off their inner critic, not worry about the outcome, and just write. I’ve wanted to participate for years but have never gotten my act together. I figured that since this year I had already wanted to get my next novel done early, taking on the challenge of NaNo is a natural fit.
My books tend to be a bit longer than the 50,000 word length. Does that mean I’m aiming to hit 50,000 and finish later? Heck no! My goal is to have an entire first draft of Three Girls and a Leading Man finished by November 30th. That puts me on a writing pace slightly faster than I have done before, but I think the extra motivation will help me. I have this book pretty well mapped out, which should also help. The grand plan is to then spend December in rewrites and editing to have this book out for people by Christmas.
Two months from the beginning of the process to publishing is really fast for me (like really, really, crazy fast). Baby took me almost four months and Wedding was about three months from start to finish. But I like challenges! I’m taking this writing experiment of mine very, very seriously. If I want to take over the world and be a writing rock-star, I have to get my ass in gear. And the best way I can think of to do that is to write like there’s no tomorrow.
Of course, if I find, or if any of my beta readers find, that quality is suffering due to the speed at which I am producing, I will take a step back and slow myself down. There is nothing more important to me than writing a good book–not NaNo, not a self imposed deadline, not even the lure of all those people who are gonna get kindles for Christmas this year. The quality of the book comes first, hands down.
But I feel like this story is already within me. I’ve mapped it out, dreamt about it, and imagined it fully. All that’s left is to get it down on paper. I plan to devote every waking minute (that I don’t have to spend at work) on writing this book. I even went so far as to cancel my cable (sob!) so I should have nothing to distract me. Remember what I said about taking this seriously?
So if you try to contact me and I don’t answer, I apologize. I might miss out on bar nights or get-togethers–save me a beer (I’ll take a Newcastle please) and I’ll meet you in December. For the next three and a half weeks I’m gonna be a crazy hermit author lady, hiding in my house and kicking out ridiculous amounts daily word counts. Wish me luck!
rachelschurig 