How do you write a novel in 29 days? The same way you write a novel in 21 days, only slower.

This past November, I wrote my second novel for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), completing the required 50,000 words the day before the deadline. But my experience this time was very different from when I wrote my first novel, Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York.

Last time, the words flowed effortlessly. It was a lot of work, for sure, but nothing was forced. This time, it was really a chore, and the results show it. There’s only one semi-decent character, and the plot is held together by supernatural band-aids.

The whole point of NaNoWriMo is to go for quantity over quality, and just get a first draft done quickly instead of editing yourself to death and never finishing. So this was a success in that I crossed the finish line. I’m going to make a few revisions, then post it anonymously on one of my other sites.

Some people say that you can’t force inspiration when your muse is on sabbatical. Others say that writer’s block is a lame excuse to avoid work. What do you say?

You know how sometimes you read or hear something, and you have the feeling that you’re missing an inside joke? People who read my novel Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York may have that feeling every few pages. While some of the Easter eggs are obvious, many are not.

As I had always planned to, I’ve updated the epilogue to point out the hidden references, symbolism that may have been overlooked, notes about the actual writing of the novel, etc.

Here are some of the questions that are answered:

• Where do the characters’ names come from?
• What is the significance of the photon with a wavelength of 400 nanometers?
• What is the meaning of Jack’s cryptic notes, which even he doesn’t understand?
• What blogger is referenced twice, though not explicitly named?
• What’s special about the exact time that Jack wakes up?

etc., etc. To get the full Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York experience, you need to read the epilogue – but it contains spoilers! (The full text of the novel is still freely available at the link above.)

65 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into what would become the town of Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York. It left a thick layer of atmospheric dust that would shroud the world in darkness for 1,000 years. But it also left something else…

Now, in the final countdown to the Mayan-prophesied doomsday of 2012, a series of mysterious occurrences signals that the end is near. In a frantic race against the clock, mesothelioma lawyer Jack Crowley will risk everything to find the truth, knowing he is the last hope of saving the world from unspeakable evil.

My first novel is now available to be read online, for free. As you can see, it’s a 2012 doomsday novel revolving around a lawyer in an unknown town in New York. Before we go any further,

1. I’m aware that the asteroid really landed in Mexico, not New York. This is explained in the book.

2. I’m aware that the Mayans didn’t really predict the end of the world in 2012. This is explained too.

I’m not sure what genre this is, but it’s something like an apocalyptic thriller parody. Here are some selected characters:

Jack Crowley: A successful New York mesothelioma attorney at the law firm of Dewey, Cheatem & Howe. He’s sick of all the 2012 hype, and he thought today would be just like any other. He was wrong.

Milli Vanilli Chilli Willi: A prominent mesothelioma physician who seems capable of anything. But can she cure the mother of all cancers?

Frank Breadstick: A bright-eyed paralegal whose good intentions are often compromised by his poor judgment. Will he be more of an asset than a liability?

Count Voldemort Sidious Hitler the Terrible (Morty): Senior partner at Dewey, Cheatem & Howe. Mesothelioma law is his life. Does he know more than he’s letting on?

Kentucky Jones (Tuck): Part archaeologist, part New Age thinker, part cowboy. Can he decrypt the important clues left by past civilizations?

Ivana Suyurass: A fierce lawyer with a fiery temper, she usually gets what she wants. Why is she showing a sudden interest in certain people?

Plenty O’Lawsuits: A young lawyer new to the firm. Will she find mesothelioma law to be the calling she hopes it is?

Teflon Tyrone: He doesn’t talk much, but you wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley. So what happens when someone makes that mistake?

Feel free to leave comments noting any typos, inconsistencies, plot holes, etc. that you find. All suggestions will be considered for inclusion in future revisions. (I’m aware that some of the links point to blank pages, and I’ll be working on this soon.) Other than that, just sit back and see what happens on this eventful December 20, 2012.

Right now, an evil cancer is threatening to end the world.
The only ones who can stop it are mysteriously disappearing.
And people I work with may be involved in both.

I’m mesothelioma lawyer Jack Crowley,
and today is the longest day of my life.

Read Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York, before it’s too late!

I just wrote my first novel in 21 days. At 55,000 words, that’s about 2,619 words a day. While I’m not ready to release it to everyone just yet, I’m going to share some tips on how you can become a novelist too, at lightning speed. (Update 12/7/2009: My novel, Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York, is now available online.)

I did this as my first foray into NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, which takes place every November. Now in its 11th year, NaNoWriMo has become a popular international event (despite the “Na” part of its name).

The goal is simple: write a 50,000 word novel from scratch in the month of November. 50,000 words because it’s a nice round number towards the lower end of the novel range. And November because the founders wanted to take advantage of the miserable weather.

You can start planning beforehand, but you can’t actually start writing until November 1st. Other than that, there aren’t really any hard rules, although they suggest that you don’t just write the same word 50,000 times. They say that if you think it’s a novel, they think it’s a novel.

This year, there are 170,000 participants, and about 15% of the participants will “win,” or reach the 50,000 word minimum by the end of the month. There are no points for character development or interesting plots; if you write 50,000 words, you win. The premise here is quantity over quality.

While that may sound crazy, the idea is that most aspiring novelists fail to write their novel, not because they’re not good enough, but because they just don’t get the words written. They have this saying: a bad draft can be revised into a great novel, but a blank page can’t be revised into anything other than a blank page. And surprisingly, some NaNoWriMo novels have become bestsellers.

I wasn’t sure if I could even finish, let alone do a decent job. But I love the finished product.

I haven’t officially “won” yet, because their site doesn’t let you verify your word count until November 25th. When you do, you get a printable certificate, an icon for your website, and inclusion in the winner’s list.

Will I do it again? Maybe not. I’m really glad I did it once, but I found it extremely stressful. But for those who want to, here are some tips.

1. Decide whether it’s worth it.

This is a big commitment that will take over your whole November. While you can back out at any time, it’s best to decide up front whether you really want to do it. If not, then don’t do it. If so, then don’t make excuses.

2. Turn off the TV, log out of Twitter.

There’s no time to lose, and you can’t afford distractions.

3. Join a support group.

NaNoWriMo offers a built-in community, with forums and ways to connect with local groups. I didn’t use these features, but they’re great for people who need to be in touch with other people who are going through it. I did enjoy the occasional pep talk emails though.

4. Know that you can do it.

I’ve heard people say that they can’t write a novel because they’re not a novelist. Well of course you’re not a novelist, if you haven’t written a novel yet! But after you write one, then you will be a novelist. So get started.

5. Do your planning and research ahead of time.

While I didn’t have much of an outline in my head before I started, I had some ideas. I also knew the main characters – their names, and a little bit about them. And the stuff I needed to research, I tried to do it before I started writing. Once the clock starts ticking, you want to just go full speed ahead.

6. Don’t worry too much about quality.

This was a tough one for me, because I tend to write very slowly, since I want to make sure everything works out just right. But I knew I didn’t have time for that here. I’ll need to go through my draft again to proofread it (I already noticed I accidentally brought a character back to life by using the wrong name). And I’m sure I introduced some inconsistencies by starting out one way, then changing my mind.

These things can all be taken care of later. That’s why they call it a rough draft. Rest assured that bookstores are filled with novels that are worse than yours will be.

7. Pace yourself.

50,000 words in 30 days is 1,667 words a day (that’s almost exactly the length of this blog post). But if you target the minimum, you have a problem when you fall short. I wrote 6,009 words the first day because I was excited to get started, but I knew that wasn’t sustainable. I decided to target 2,000 words a day, a goal I hit consistently, though I found it to be quite a lot.

By sticking to just over 2,000 words a day, I was on track to finish on time, without a big rush at the end. When I first saw that I could finish before Thanksgiving, and then saw that I could finish in three weeks, I ramped it up a bit. But only on three days did I write significantly more than 2,000 words.

8. Resist the urge to edit.

If you have a tiny little tweak to make, go ahead and do it now. But if it will take a while, just write a note to come back to it later. It will be hard enough just to write everything once, and there won’t be time to write everything twice.

9. Write the kind of novel you want to write.

Don’t think that your novel has to be the kind of thing high school kids would study in English class. Some parts of my novel are beyond ridiculous, but that’s the way I wanted to write. So you write the way you want to write.

10. Make decisions fast.

On the first page, I found myself in the midst of a huge internal debate over the brand of bourbon that the main character should be drinking. Realizing that there was absolutely no time for hesitation, I knew I had to just pick one and move on. This happened many times, so I got in the habit of deciding quickly, and reserving the right to change things later (the bourbon did change, in the end).

11. Be aware that some parts are much easier to write than others.

I found writing dialogue to be really cumbersome. I like writing what the characters say, but I hate figuring out how to say that they said it (i.e., “Blah blah blah,” he said in an accent reminiscent of the Swedish Chef on the Muppets, “blah blah blah blah blah.”)

But when I was writing exposition (the main character reflecting on the significance of various things), the words just flew by. So when I found myself writing fast, I kept following that train of thought as far as it would go. That would help pick up the slack when the words came like molasses flowing uphill.

12. Have a word count safety net.

I had one particular scene in mind that could be as long as I needed it to be, because two characters were just talking about stuff while waiting for something to happen. I was saving it for the end. I thought I’d write the rest of the book first, and after I was done, however short I was of 50,000 words, I’d get the rest from this scene. It could have been 20,000 words if it had to be. As it turned out, I didn’t need any extra words, but it was nice to know I had a safety net if I did.

13. Don’t necessarily do it in 21 days. Or even 30 days.

This kind of goes against the whole foundation of NaNoWriMo, but I think some people are better off not subjecting themselves to this time constraint. NaNoWriMo gives you 30 days to write 50,000 words, which is insane. I wrote 55,000 words in 21 days, which is even more insane.

Keep in mind that the time needed to write something increases more than proportionally with the word count. A 50,000 word novel takes much more than 50 times as long as a 1,000 word blog post. Writing a novel is a really big deal. If it’s going to drive you crazy to force yourself to do it in such a short period of time, then give yourself more time.

60 days would probably give you a comfortable yet fairly brisk pace for writing a 50,000 word novel. I wouldn’t stretch it out any longer than that though, or you might never finish. Get a decent draft done quickly, then revise it.

How many words in a novel?

By the way, for those of you wondering how long a novel has to be, The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Award gives these definitions:

Novel: 40,000+ words
Novella: 17,500-39,999 words
Novelette: 7,500-17,499 words
Short story: less than 7,500 words

NaNoWriMo sets the minimum word count at 50,000, a nice round number that’s big enough to be considered a novel. And while that word count is on the low end of the novel spectrum, there have been some great novels around that length. Personally, I find most novels far too long. When I read The Lord of the Rings, I remember wondering “are these damn hobbits ever going to stop singing?”

For reference, here are some well known works (some of them shorter than novel length), sorted by word count.