NaNoWriMo and Me

It took me about 25 years to write my first novel. Yes, literally! The premise actually changed very little, although I took against the hero of the piece a few years ago and changed him completely (I really like him now…). So having finally finished it, I had a new dilemma – could I ever write another? In the (at that point, unlikely) event that Glossy Pages was ever published, had I another plot to follow up with?

It turned out I did. Last October, my partner sent me a link to an article about NaNoWriMo and I decided I’d sign up, for two reasons. First, I had a germ of an idea for a book based on my school reunion group – we’d met up after 40 years (I’m that old), and one member had dubbed us ‘The Ruby Girls’. And secondly, I wanted to commit psychologically to writing fiction. Law of attraction, that sort of thing.

November 2012

On 1 November, I curled up on the sofa with my laptop propped wonkily on a cushion and my dog, Ella, curled up alongside – and that’s how The Ruby Girls starts, with one of the characters curled up on the sofa with her laptop and dog. The point being – if you haven’t a clue where to start, start with yourself. Where you are, who’s around, how you feel – there’ll be something you can use as inspiration.

The first 1,670 words spilled out effortlessly and I smugly entered the total on my NaNoWriMo website page. I love that feature! You put in your word count and it promptly tells you:

• what percentage you’ve written

• how many words you have left to write

• your daily average.

If you’re ahead of the game and writing more than the suggested daily word count, it tells you when you’ll finish if you continue to write at that rate. This all worked wonderfully well for me, because I kept up. I’m pretty sure I’d have loved that feature rather less if it were telling me I now needed to write 5,000 words a day in order to finish by 30 November! However, I know there are plenty of people whose creative juices flow most freely during the final hours of deadline day and who thrive on such a challenge.

Of course, the words didn’t spill out that effortlessly every day. Sometimes, I really struggled.

I had a clear idea from the outset of how the plot would pan out. I pitched it to my friend Sally. She loved it (of course she did – one of the characters was based on her, and ended up with a very nice man). A couple of days in, I hit a snag.

I’d intended to have the reunion take place in Bournemouth, where the real one happened. But Bournemouth is such an ugly word on the page, and on the ear. Winchester, on the other hand, is a lovely word, and a lovely place. The action shifted to Winchester – and with that, the plot decided to do its own thing and I lost control completely. The essence was the same, but everything else changed. The end result was a far more coherent tale than the one I’d planned. There’s much to be said for going with the flow and allowing evolution.

Even with the new plot, I experienced writer’s block, quite often. But after years as a non-fiction writer, I’m no longer alarmed by this. I know that at some point during a brisk country walk, the solution will present itself. If you’re planning to sign up for NaNoWriMo and haven’t yet identified what fast-tracks you on the problem-solving front, now is a good moment to give it some thought. Baking? Climbing? Meditation?

I completed the structure of the book in three weeks and spent the final week tweaking and making the word count up to 50,000. On the very last day, I uploaded my text and was declared a winner. Hurrah! I’d done it!

Did I enjoy the process? Absolutely! I love writing. I love that it fills my head and consumes me completely. I love that wonderful quote from Rainer Maria Rilke (well, OK, the paraphrased version from Sister Act II, if you want to be picky): ‘If, when you wake up in the morning, you can’t think of nothing but writing, then you are a writer.’ Based on that, I’m a writer – and then some.

Life After NaNoWriMo

I’d love to say that I’d written a blockbuster, but I hadn’t. Nowhere near. There would be no literary agent wringing his/her hands with glee and calculating a tidy commission. There would be no bidding war. No one would pen a heartfelt note, telling me I’d changed their life (although who knows? – life has a way of surprising us).

But I had written a fairly decent story. The plot – if highly unlikely – is quite cleverly interwoven, with a satisfying and somewhat poignant ending. It addresses the insecurities of women and the lengths they’ll go to in order to save face with their peer group, albeit in a lighthearted way. And I’ve certainly read a lot worse.

I revised some of it, wrote a few thousand more words (it was never going to be a full-length novel), and declared it complete.

I’d intended to self-publish Glossy Pages first, but for various reasons I decided to launch The Ruby Girls into the wider world under the pseudonym J-J Jacamez and see what happened. For the first few months, not a lot did happen. My sister downloaded it (very kindly, since she’d already read it twice). A few of my friends downloaded it (some of them had also already read it twice). My daughter and my son’s girlfriend downloaded it. The real Ruby Girls downloaded it. And a few people I didn’t know downloaded it. By the beginning of August, 46 copies had been sold. No one reviewed it except friends and friends of friends.

I decided to try a free promo, and selected the first weekend in August. Over the two days, it was downloaded nearly 2,000 times in the UK and nearly 400 times in the USA. The following week, it sold like hot cakes. Royalties, at last! And I reached the Top 500 overall and the Top 100 in Humour. I was almost happy…

Tune in next time to discover why I qualify my happiness with ‘almost’…

For more information on how Writers & Artists is going to be supporting NaNoWriMo this year, please take a look here.