The 30-day Novel Challenge

One of the hardest things I find about writing isn't starting but finishing (har-har ;)...). I struggle in other areas, too, but the lack of finishing is probably the most detrimental to my writing development. Elements like pacing, dialogue, plot, character-development, and grammar can all be practiced, honed, and improved. But without assembling drafts that have a beginning, middle, and end, we never really get a chance to practice the art and craft of story-telling broadly understood.

While I know little and less and about chess, I've heard that skilled players divide a match into opening- game, middle-game, and end-game. Some players are masters at opening-game and middle-game, but lose confidence when end-game arrives. Others are the opposite, growing stronger as the match develops.

 I think in writing I am best (but by no means great) at opening-game. I enjoy building a world and characters to populate it. I like following characters through their day, meeting their friends and seeing places they often visit--school, home, a local park; in short, getting to know them on a basic level of acquaintance. Excitement rises when their routine is disrupted, or some challenge comes into their lives requiring a bit of ingenuity and growth so solve. That can be good fun for a writer, if not always for the character.

As the story enters middle-game and end-game, I find the going harder. They're both different from open-game, so far as I can tell, and present different challenges. I struggle here for a number of reasons, but I suspect the most important is because I have so little experience working through them.

If all we study are openings, we'll never give ourselves the chance to sift through the complexities of middle and end.

For this reason, I decided I would give the National Novel Writing Month challenge a try. The idea of the challenge is to write 50,000-words of a novel during the 30-days of November. The time-frame is kept deliberately short as a way of keeping writers like me from bogging down early and throwing their drafts away. Quantity is stressed over quality, with the understanding that a finished draft is more useful than a polished opening-third of the same story one has been trying to tell for a decade. I agree with these premises, but having the itch to write at this moment, decided to start the 30-day challenge right away rather than wait until November.

 I'm about a week in now, and so far it's going well. The hardest part has been putting my "perfectionist" tendencies to the side, focusing instead on moving the story forward rather than correcting every minor detail in the opening sections; that can come later, when the middle-game and end-game have at least been given a first showing. Even if it turns out to be a bad showing, it will be worth the practice I expect (consider it an "investment in loss").

I'll try and keep the blog updated through the course of this project, which should conclude on 16 July. I admit the demands of writing a 50,000-word story in 30-days may limit what I have to say here, but I will try.

Wish me luck!