Hey There and Happy Halloween! I recently started a new project while I hunt for an Agent to get my book Evil Has No Color published. And as I stuff my face with Halloween candy, I would love to just wrap this story up in one month but although many people can do it, I have some reservations about it. I know what your thinking. There’s always got to be one person to try and spoil things for everyone else. But I assure you that I’m not going to change your mind about NaNoWriMo coming up next month.

I have always felt that being able to write a novel in a matter of weeks was really pushing it. The fastest I have ever written a novel was three weeks and that was when I was unemployed, had a lot of time on my hands and no boyfriend. But when you have a job and responsibilities, it is almost impossible to write a full-length manuscript in only thirty days.

I think that NaNoWriMo is a fun challenge just to see if you could do it, but if you are truly serious about becoming a best-selling Author, it would be best to make that book the very best you can instead of concentrating on how fast you wrote it. Quality counts for everything in a great novel. Could you write a good novel in thirty days? Perhaps if you are really good at your craft but could you write a great novel in thirty days? I honestly don’t see how.

With all the time it takes to develop characters, do research, do an outline, edit and do at least three or four drafts, Sigh… that’s a lot of work and would be very time-consuming. In thirty days, there would be something lacking somewhere. And everyone knows that the first draft is never very good.

I would prefer to take my time writing a novel. I don’t want to rush the magic. I want to savor it as it’s happening. That’s part of the joy of writing. Being able to create something out of nothing. It would be like trying to cook a pot roast too quick. If you tried to eat it, it would be hard and dry on the outside and raw on the inside. It’s hard to chew and hell to digest. A book that isn’t written carefully is the same way after it’s completed. Hard to chew and hell to digest.

I don’t feel that it’s necessary to spend several years just to write one book. If you feel that after ten or twelve rewrites it still isn’t to your liking, it’s time to start questioning who you are as a person. You must ask yourself am I too much of a perfectionist? Am I hard to satisfy? Does everything have to be perfect? Nothing is really ever perfect because no matter how great of a masterpiece you think you have, there will always be somebody to tell you that it’s not.

Basically, you have to go at your own pace when writing a book, and not let anyone, not even me tell you how it should or shouldn’t be done. If you follow your heart and believe in yourself, you can’t go wrong.

Until next time…