For a good 10 years I was an active participant in an international writing forum where authors and budding authors were challenged to write 50,000 words of a novel over the course of the 30 days of November.
After the non-profit group jumped off the deep end in June of 2022 when the Supreme Court released its decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, I made the choice to cut ties with them, move forward on my own, and figure out how to motivate and inspire myself to write my next novel.
Being of a competitive nature, the organization’s website — with its nifty tracking features and graphs — had inspired me through the years to commit to writing my 1,667 words per day so I could earn the various badges awarded for completing tasks along the way to the 50,000-word mark. However, one of the pitfalls of producing that much content in such a short time is the quality of your writing suffers. Participants were continually encouraged to write with abandon and keep plowing ahead without copy editing. That being the case, it wasn’t that uncommon on the days I was running behind that I would cut and paste whole articles from various internet sources into my manuscript with a note at the beginning of the chapter that said, “Fix later” or something along that line. Later sometimes turned out to be when the book went into its first round of edits.
I was able to cut down the voluminous content and create unique content from those “fix later” passages. However, I realized after rereading some of my older books that there were a good number of data dumps in my stories that somehow managed to make it through rounds of editing without being thinned out considerably as they could (or some may say should) have been.
This past fall I started a new manuscript. It’s the fifth book in my Civil War series so I’ve got a template in my head of how to create compelling, historic love stories for young adult readers. That being said, having an open-ended deadline to write this book has left considerable wiggle room when it comes to meeting the deadlines that I’m now compelled to set for myself. While I didn’t intend to follow the strict parameters under which I’d previously been working, I did set a goal to write one three- to five-page chapter per weekday in the 1,000-word range — give or take a couple hundred words.
Here we are, some five-and-a-half months later, and I’ve got 55 chapters, 54,762 words written, and I’m on page 241 of the manuscript. I’d say I’m within 2,000 words of typing an author’s two favorite words: The end.
What I didn’t do this time around is write 50,000 words in 30 days. What I did do is write a novel at my pace, without spending a month waking up at 4:00 a.m. every day to begin writing so I could complete my word count before I started my “real” job. And I didn’t spend every last minute in November — including Thanksgiving weekend — thinking about my latest book.
Working at this slower pace has gave me the ability to drop everything when our daughters and their families call us for a FaceTime session, enjoy dinner and game nights with our son and his family once a month, go to daily Mass a couple times a week, stop by and visit my mom at the assisted living center every week, hang out with my husband every night to catch up on our favorite home improvement shows, watch our grandchildren play football, soccer and basketball, and go to Bible study with my dad every Friday morning.
It may have taken five times as long to write this book than it did the previous times when I was sprinting towards the magical 50,000-word mark, but I would venture to say that this draft is five times better than any of the initial drafts for my other books. I predict that when it comes time to start the first round of revisions later this week it will be a much less arduous task than it’s been in the past.
I may never be one of those prolific writers who cranks out four or five novels a year, but I’m working at a manageable pace, truly keeping my eyes on the prize: writing wholesome, unforgettable stories that align with my faith and values to touch the hearts of countless people worldwide. In other words, using my talents for God’s greater glory. That may not win me any writing certificates, but I know a far greater prize awaits when my writing days are behind me.