It’s October 31, and you know what that means! It’s Halloween the day before National Novel-Writing Month!
The standard NaNoWriMo challenge is to write a (first draft) novel of at least 50,000 words, but a lot of writers adapt the structure to their own needs. Here’s where I’m at: after way too many months, I am finally finished building my revision strategy for my novel Crane Girl (which gives you some idea how absurdly complicated the book has gotten), and I am finally starting the actual revision of the text itself. Just in the past week, I mean. So the timing, while crazy, is perfect.
Here’s my NaNoReMo goal. I will revise (i.e., add to the new draft) 800 words per weekday, except for Thanksgiving week, when it’s 80 words per weekday due to vacation and family time.
17 × 800 + 5 × 80 = 14,000
So that’s 14,000 words for November. (The goal is to reach that overall total — the day-by-day numbers are just guidelines.) That seems like the right blend of ambitious and sane. We’ll see.
Oh, and um, y’know. Happy Halloween!
Brian D. Buckley 