Write Your Book in November: A month-long journey of inspiration and support

I had a secret on book tour. Not anymore.

Self-Portrait at an Easel Painting a Devotional Panel, late 1550s, by Sofonisba Anguissola. Zamek Museum in Łańcut Castle

Hi hi,

Today, would you like to write? 500 words, three scenes, thirty minutes: whatever it takes to get us to the page. I’m going to sneak in a few sentences while my children are allegedly cleaning their rooms.

When I was on book tour for my first novel, The Wives of Los Alamos, I had a secret I kept from all the interviews and publicity around the book. The novel was a finalist for a big prize, I was in People Magazine, it was a national bestseller, was published in multiple countries, etc. People asked me all of the time how the book came to be. I talked about the research. I talked about how I started off as a poet. What I never told anyone during all that time was this: I wrote the novel in a month. (Well, the first complete draft.)

That’s me on New Mexico PBS not talking about how I wrote the book in a month.

National Novel Writing Month

In three weeks, it will be National Novel Writing Month, a month dear to me, because about eleven years ago, I wrote, in secret, the first draft of my debut novel, The Wives of Los Alamos. On book tours and in interviews, for fear I’d sound like a bit of a hack, or a joke, I kept the bit about how I wrote it in a month a secret. I wanted to write SERIOUS literature, and of course, I thought that should be a laborious, difficult process, not a secret month of having fun noodling around. (I revised that first draft for a long time after.) But this is no longer a secret because I am telling you! Many writers have done just that and, braver than I, admitted it in interviews: Ottessa Moshfegh, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Sarah Gruen all have written successful novels in a month.

It was fun to write with fervor and commitment for four weeks straight. (I did not write on weekends.) I wasn’t writing a novel, I had to tell myself, b/c I was insecure, I was playing around! I would show this to no one—ha ha! I think it was the relief from “writing a book” and not being in the self-awareness of the workshop setting in graduate school, that partly enabled the writing to flow. Having a playfulness and having a secret partly enabled the book to be written.

Before I began that month, eleven years ago, I didn’t think I could write a novel. But I could! And I think you can, too.

So….

ANNOUNCING….

The November Daily Write-Along!

If you’d like daily writing encouragement in the month of November with yours truly, as you try out writing a book project (err, as you noodle around) for four weeks in a row, I’ve got you.

Each day, in November, for those who subscribe to TODAY YOU WILL WRITE as monthly or yearly paid members, I’ll send out daily encouragement and motivation, Monday thru Friday. It will be a small missive to give you some extra writing vibes for writing that day. The letters can apply to any medium and kind of art. If you have a joy you’d love to keep doing every day and build a habit of it even more, or you want to recommit to the habit, this month of daily encouragement might be for you.

What could you write or make during this time? Anything! The practice really is in showing up and seeing what happens when you dip your cup into the water of your mind.

Maybe you are midway through a book or have an idea you want to try, or are in revisions. All stages are welcome.

Join as a paid subscriber before November 1st (that’s $5.90 for the month, folks) and I’ll send you a little love note of writing encouragement five days a week in November. The five-dollar sign-up just keeps the letters specific to those who want the daily notes and have signed up for them. If you are opting out of this once-a-year programming, you will still receive the weekly newsletter.

In November, I’ll talk about the muck of what a month of writing feels like and talk firsthand about making a draft and trying to turn that into a publishable manuscript, along with the daily encouragement you’ve come to expect from TYWW, and profiling other writers who did something similar.

In December, after you’ve got a draft together and wondering, “Okay, what next?” I’ll have letters about traditional publishing (finding agents, querying, etc.). I’m also so excited for a letter I’m working on of insights from friends who chose to self-publish instead of doing traditional publishing.

To those who think they can’t do this

I wasn’t a novelist or even a fiction writer when I wrote a book draft in a month. I wrote poetry. I’d said repeatedly to my fiction-writing friends who read novels: “How can you get past all those bad sentences?”

If you tend to be a perfectionist or a poet (or both, like I was), this month to write a book might really be a good exercise in letting go. Before trying it, I could do the sprint of a stanza, but I did not believe I could do the length of a novel. A novel requires some looseness. I was a tad too controlling of everything my words. If you are an overwriter, you could try this month to underwrite, slowing your process down to a chapter a week, or some other slow-time practice.

A month was a doable amount of time to commit to a consistent writing practice and see if I could do it. The results?

During that month, that marvelous month, the magic ingredient was committing to writing every day (except weekends) and not having big expectations, but instead, curiosity. What would appear that day?

I’d love to try to help you write for a month's streak if you’d like. You don’t need to have a book in mind. Just writing every day that is not work writing, is a one-month-long writing streak success in my book.

So rev those research and writing engines, because in three weeks, if you decide to join us, we’ll start our daily commitment to a book draft for the month of November.

A Wish for You

This weekend, and into next week, I wish you playfulness. May you “just mess around” for a bit. Like in a dark room, when you dip photo paper into the developer bath, and feel that wonder as the image begins to appear. Even if the image, or those words, are not quite what you want on the first try. I loved those darkroom days in college, listening to mixtapes in the red light, moving to the beats of enlarge, develop, stop, rinse, and dry.

from Bushwick Community Darkroom

Love,

P.S. If a paid subscription isn’t an option for you right now, you could share the newsletter with a friend. Three referrals gets you one month free. (Twenty-five gets you a full year.)