Thursday, November 3, 2011

My NaNo Post

I’ll be perfectly blunt: as an agent, I hate NaNo. But - ONLY because it means that December…will be full of projects that I really, really should not be seeing until MARCH.

So side from that agent aversion, I do think it’s a fabulous event in the writing community and a fabulous tool for writers to really get on track and feel accomplished.

That all said, I know that everyone and their mother is going to have (er, ALREADY has) a post with tips and motivators and all sorts of amazing links to help with NaNo…so I’ll keep this short and simple.

WRITE YOUR HEART OUT – and then spend THE NEXT THREE MONTHS EDITING.

I promise if you send a query letter before January that says it’s a NaNo book, you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot. And no, that does not mean you just shouldn’t put it in your query (although really, you shouldn’t) – it means you really WILL be shooting yourself in the foot because there’s no WAY you’ve had the time to make sure it is ABSOLUTELY ready for agent eyes!

The worst thing you can EVER do in a submission: send it out before it’s ready.

Now GO ON – stop procrastinating by reading blog posts and write already!

10 comments:

  1. Wow, people actually send their NaNoWriMo novels in December? Don't get me wrong, I love NaNoWriMo, but there's some years I haven't even looked at the manuscript I wrote in November because I knew it was a mess, and not a mess I cared to edit into anything submission-worthy.

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  2. I'm being a NaNo cheater and using it to try and make some serious headway into a current WIP... but I'm one of those people who can't shut the internal editor off...

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  3. Ah yes! The querying too soon thing. I was just talking about this to someone... :P I'm not even doing NaNo this year, because it puts entirely too much pressure on me and I don't need any more of that thank you very much. :)

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  4. I don't see how anyone could think their NaNo novel would be ready to query in December. My 2010 NaNo novel wasn't query ready until June!

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  5. Sorry for reading. I'll go away and write. :(

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  6. I finished my 1800 NaNo words by 11 a.m. today, so I can swoon around reading blogs all I want. Nya, nya, nya!

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  7. This NaNo thing (I'm a first timer) is very strange for me. I tend to edit as I write which makes it nearly impossible to churn out a decent amount of words this quickly. I'm trying to let go and just write just to say I did it. I'm pretty aware it's going to be awful when it's done and if there is something redeemable in it, it's going to take a good 6 months of editing to find it :P

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  8. I tried it. I really tried it. But I have to fiddle about with the words. I can't stop and just let them be. Does that mean I'm a NaNoWriMoNoNo?

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  9. I NaNo'd 2 years ago and was fiercely proud to have a real 'standing' novel (well it needs more words than the NaNo limit) with a plot from start to finish and characters that kept coming up with solutions and odd ideas from start to finish. I realized I could write when pushed. It may make it onto someone's desk in future, but has become 'matured' by sitting 2 years while I write another book. I'll go back though, it's too good to lose.

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  10. One year I d ecided to begin a novel in September to find out if I could finish in a month. Well, October came and I had only 40,000 words; then November I hit 50,000. Finally in November I wrote 60,000 words and quit. No way could I have written the required number in one month. But I did learn a lesson. The more I wrote, the easier the characters and plot appeared.

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