Write a novel in a month: The 2005 status.

	log of books read or check the Booker Prizes
No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days (2004) by Chris Baty.

Everyone's a winner - well, a lot of people - all those that write a 50,000-word novel in November - National Novel Writing Month:

Status? What status?

Day.	Hours written.	Word count reached.	WOTD (Word Of The Day) from Bev.	Terror alert level.	John Steinbeck in Journal of a Novel.
1	3	1900	afterclap	Low. Eating Halloween chocolate. Wearing last year's Halloween hat (a black trilby), a good thinking cap; gives me delusions I'm Ray Carver.	Jan 29: "A good writer always works at the impossible." [From the first entry in John Steinbeck's Journal of a Novel.]
2	2.8	4000	greening	Low. Despite a little greening around the gills from excess of Halloween candy.	Feb 12: "We shall see whether I am capable. Surely I feel humble in the face of this work. ... It has to have a universal quality or there is no point in writing it. ... I want to write this one as though it were my last book."
3	3	5800	cant	Slightly worried: my initial momentum had a much shorter life than suggested in Baty's weekly tips.	Feb 15: "I must forget even that I want it to be good. Such things only belong in the planning stage. Once it starts, it should not have any intention save only to be written."
4	3	7700	kisser	Happier, thanks to (a) Bev's WOTD (Word Of The Day) and (b) discovery that the Band we saw on Halloween is Fishtank Ensemble.	Feb 16: "I have sweated out one page and a half."
5	3	10,000 - hooray!	bittern	Happy because we went to hear Fishtank Ensemble last night and Jean decided to enroll in NaNoWriMo. Sad because I just heard Marianna's computer has bitten the dust for the weekend. Good luck on recovery!	Feb 20: "I am pleased now the geography and weather are over and I can start with the people."
6	1.5	10,800	gimlet	Happy because of a great day-long hike with friends; freaked out because I have spent most of my banked word count.	Feb 23: "Lord, this is a complicated book."
7 (Monday)	2.5	12,800	triumph	Slump: Plot is very scattered now; week 2 starts tomorrow with another distraction: I work a 16-hour day as an election clerk. However, as I am over 12K words, I am delightedly eligible for a Plan A massage.	Feb 26 (Monday): "I am not too bright this morning but I will start the week just the same. I don't suppose writing consists in anything more than doing it. ... No matter what I do, the story is always there -- waiting and working ..."
8	1	13,300	wormwood	Distracted: worked 16 hours as an election clerk. Left elbow swollen. Good grief. Maybe my career as a novelist is Doomed.	March 5: "I am trying to hold it down to 1000 words a day for a while. ... I must not let this book run away from me. It must be allowed to take its own pace."
9	1.5	14,000	endure	Anxious because 113 words/day behind. Need to catch up.	March 27: "You will see in it the little blades of social criticism without which no book is worth a fart in hell."
10	3	15,600	cipher	Anxious but happier because did 3 hours, even if slow. Still behind, but today one of my evening classes ended, so I can now make progress on future Wednesday nights.	April 9: "Today I am going halfheartedly to boost my output. ... I feel I have slipped ... have lost my discipline. Don't know how one goes about preserving both freshness and discipline."
11	3	17,900	eidolon	Good: finally introduced the Quarks of Personality yesterday, which had slowed my words-per-hour for 2 days while I grappled with it. Am back to a pace where catch-up is possible.	April 24: "A long book ... drives in very slowly [to the reader's mind] and ... instead of cutting and leaving, it allows the mind to rearrange itself to fit around the wedge. ... perhaps the healing has been warped around the shape of the wedge so that when the wedge is finally withdrawn and the book set down, the mind cannot ever be quite what it was before."
12	3	20,000	curry	I caught up in terms of number of words, but Steinbeck's quote is appropriate.	April 26: "It is just no good and I am going to throw it away. I haven't had many bust days but this has been calamitous from the start."
13	2.5	21,800	map	Not bad: a little breaking and entering.	May 3: "Plans are real things and not experience. A rich life is rich in plans. If they don't come off, they are still a little bit realized. ... if I dwell heavily on plans, it is because I am trying to put down the whole man."
14 (Monday)	2	23,100	cleave	A good brain-storming dinner with friends last night, to uncover some Machiavellian plot ideas. Well worth getting a little behind on the word count. Also received a CHOCOLATE boost from poet Dion Farquhar, chocolate flower medallions, truffles, and a chocolate laptop.	May 4: "I do not want to dawdle today because I have so many things to do."
15	2.7	25,021	stalk	Made half way, on schedule by the skin of my canines.	May 7: "Let it never be said that I was afraid to try something just because I didn't know anything about it. By trial and error I will finish it ... And it will be unique."
16	1.7	26,100	whomp	My speed was whomped down by spending most of my writing time gloating over what I'd already written, laughing at my own jokes, and letting my psychopath do a little more whomping.	May 8: "Today is going to be slower, but who cares."
17	3	28,400	yellow	In the U.S.A., the government remains at an elevated risk, Code Yellow, for terrorist attack: "Continue to be alert for suspicious activity and report it to authorities."	May 9: "I'll bet my reader can't tell what is going to happen. When it comes, it will be so methodical, so factual that is should happen under your nose. And all of it has been planted. Every lead is in. I don't think you will be able to find fault with any of its forms."
18	3	30,500	peregrine	More hard going, so decided to skip over the hard bits and take a field trip too.	May 11: "I am ready and the words are beginning to well up and come crawling down my pencil and drip on the paper. .... And now I will get into it and may the words be very clean and sharp like good knives." [Maybe will stop reading Steinbeck for a while. Too much irony.]
19	3	32,400	maker	More hard going.	May 14: "I am amazed at the utterly despicable quality of my thinking. ... The death wish is not so strong as it used to be and maybe some time it will disappear entirely. ... I learned long ago that you cannot tell how well you will end by how you start."
20	3	34,300	cloister	A-R-G-H.	May 15: "In the very early dawn, I felt a fiendish desire to take my electric pencil sharpener apart. ... I would call it Valley to the Sea which is a direct quote from absolutely nothing but has two great words and a direction. ... I've given you only people and their reactions. ... The real foreboding should rest on it like a crow on a fence. ... I am particularly dangerous today."
21 (Monday)	2	35,100	pod	Slow progress.	May 22: "Yesterday I felt weak and frightened ... But today all that is gone and only a good calmness has taken its place. ... Cain invented murder and he is punished by life and protection. The mark put on him is not placed there to punish him, but to protect him."
22	3	37,600	acrolect	Jumped in and just wrote. Logic, what logic? What torpedoes? This is so completely unlike Steinbeck. What WAS I thinking? Am planning bonfire for evening of Nov 30. Will burn my laptop.	May 24: "I will do it and get a lot of things said that should be said by me."
23	2	39,200	charade	The avoid-writing technique of doing so-called research on the net continues to chop into what should be writing time. Still, now I know that mice (as well as rats) can be tested with the water maze, and that there is a much richer supply of mice than rats with knock-out genes. What about knockout chimps, though?	May 29: "My work will take much longer today because I am irritable."
24	3	41,000	seal	In the 'first time for everything' department, I introduced myself to a couple of total strangers as a novelist. Their faces lit up. Then they asked my name, so I told them that I had only been a novelist for 3 weeks and hadn't published a novel. But they were delightfully supportive!	May 30: "I am having a hell of a time today. ... I don't want not to work and yet I don't seem to get to it. ... I went down and sat in the garden for an hour trying to think myself out of the curious maze I am in."
25	3	42,600	kenning	There are now 52 loose ends. Those are only the documented ones.	June 5: "Right now I am frozen. ... There's a terrible buzz of frustration in me. I can't find the man I want. I hate waiting."
26	3	43,700	claptrap	ARGH. Mystified why there is NO record of last night's 60 minutes of writing. Anyway, plunged on, rewriting it in the cold grey morning.	July 3: "Tomorrow is the 4th of July. I do not see any reason to take it off. I would take any personal holiday but it it nonsense to me to take public ones."
27	3	45,400	pearl	This is harder than I thought it would be.	August 1: "I didn't see you yesterday. Got into story trouble and when that happens, there's nothing to do than be alone and think."
28 (Monday)	3.2	47,100	syncopated	What exactly is in that big black shipping container?	September 1: "I think it is time for me to get on with my work now."
29	3	49,000	squeal	How will it all end?	October 1: "I am stuck this morning because I don't know exactly where I am and what was in the work."
30	2	50,360	endgame	The light, the light! ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!	November 1: "Today I should be pretty close to finishing... You can see it is going to be a tough day. But I'll do the best I can." [From the final entry in John Steinbeck's Journal of a Novel.]

Watch word from Bev

By a third of the way into the book, the words had sometimes led me to discover something a little more about a character (often by adding humor) and had sometimes enriched the plot. They were all both a challenge and a delight.

John Steinbeck

"he unblocked himself for the daily stint ahead by [hand-]writing a 'letter' to his close friend and editor, Pascal Covici.
... The writing covered the period from January 29 through November 1, 1951. There was a letter for every working day until the first draft of the novel was finished."
[Publishers' Note to the Journal of a Novel quoted above.]

Baty's weekly tips

Read Chris Baty's No Plot? No Problem! for the full tips, exercise, and more, much more! Meanwhile here are highlights:

Week.	Baty tips.	Baty Exercises.	Meanwhile, back with me:
1. Characters.	Don't cross stuff out. Just italicize questionable material and you can edit later. Keep the story to yourself. Don't share the novel till the month is over.	"Flesh out characters through random conversations with friends and strangers." Couch potato: pick a TV show (fictional if you are writing a novel; a documentary if you're doing non-fiction). Watch critically. How do the writers "fit a lot of story into a little time." See Baty p. 118 for more ideas here.	Suddenly my whole novel is in italics.
Week.	Baty tips.	Baty Exercises.	Meanwhile, back with me:
2. Plot.	You've introduced your characters. Now "for better or worse, the next great stage -- plot building -- is upon us." "Don't worry about getting it right this week. That comes in the revisions. This week, your goal is just to get it written." Wash your hands. Eat fruits and veggies. Stay healthy. If you lack energy for a full writing session, make "noveling quickies where you just poke your head into your novel for twenty minutes or so, add a pinch of color here, and embellishment there, and call it a night after 500 words." [How can anyone write at that rate? It's three times my speed!]	For people who thrive on input from others, see p.128 by getting your friends to brainstorm for an hour as focus group. You tell them about the characters, but do not reveal more your plot, just a vague story direction. They "argue, debate, and build off one another's ideas ... you'll get amazing insights on motivations, subplots, and other nefarious activities." Exploit "any hairy handhold you can use to hurry your novel along." Keep a notebook with you all the time to capture these 'plot flashes' for immediate use when you get back to your novel text.	Plot is harder than character.
Week.	Baty tips.	Baty Exercises.	Meanwhile, back with me:
3. Lash loose ends (preferably to each other).	Baty seems to think that he (and therefore we) could write 6,000 words in 4.5 hours of writing time. "Throw a party and trash the house. Pick out a character that's been causing you no end of grief, and do something big and reckless with them. ... If you've hit a standstill in your efforts to bring two obviously perfect romantic leads together, kill one of them. " "Make a pact with yourself to eventually destroy all evidence that this novel ever existed. ... destroying your novel before anyone reads it will give you a sexy allure that's part Zen letting-go and part Jimi Hendrix writhing over his flaming Telecaster. Yeeeowch." And from his 3rd-week cheerleader letter: "Abandon the quest for pretty sentences. Beautiful language is small-stakes writing. We're doing something epic here."	Take an hour and draw a map of your world. Fill in what you know. Add a lot that you don't already know: "get a little crazy, adding an ancient amphitheater behind a dry cleaning shop, or a whale-harpooning station atop City Hall." Color it vividly. "The Person and Thing Game." Take an unread newspaper to a place with lots of foot traffic. (1) Close eyes; count to 15; open eyes: "the first person you see is your Person. Write down everything you can about them before they get away." (2) Close eyes; open newspaper to a random page; run finger over the page for a couple of seconds; stop; open eyes: "The article, advertisement, or photo you're pointing to has a deep connection to the Person you just collected. What's the connection? You have to figure it out, and you have to work that person and their issue convincingly into the next chapter of your novel."	Lots of loose ends. Have not yet got the hang of the lashing them. So I concentrating on making a lot more loose ends, in the hopes that some of them will be lashable. [That's lashable, not laughable, thank you very much.] And this book does not have enough chocolate in it yet.
Week.	Baty tips.	Baty Exercises.	Meanwhile, back with me:
4. End game.	Love your body. Be nice to eyes, wrists, neck. Look through your noveling notebook for ideas you want to include this month. Try to get to 50K early. Celebrate. Then write more and more - so you can then go back and delete some abysmal italicized passages and STILL have 50K words. Tell everyone you know when you reach 50K.	Finish by hand (but only if you have a word lead). At social gatherings reintroduce yourself to the world as a novelist!	Time for another massage. And just another ounce of chocolate. Well, maybe two.
Week.	Baty tips.	Baty Exercises.	Meanwhile, back with me:
5. Soprano ensemble singing. [Quotes are from Baty's final cheerleader letter.]	"Before November ends, you will find yourself on the edge of 49,000 words. Getting there might require a lot of work between now and next Wednesday. But get there, you will."	"When you round that corner, and 50K comes into view, know that all of us here on staff will be rising to our feet, screaming ourselves silly with the rest of your family and friends, as you lift your arms in a victorious salute and fly across the finish line. We'll see you on the other side of 50K, novelist. "	"Triumph. Celebration. Sleep. It's all just a few days away."

No Plot? No Problem!:
A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days (2004)
by Chris Baty.