National Novel-Writing Month is coming up and I was wondering if you can still sign up to do it when you've already started the novel. I'm halfway through my current one, and could do with doing another 50,000 words in a month.
Or is National Novel-Writing Month just for people who haven't started writing their book yet?
Then you would be a rebel, like me.
Last year I used it as a final push to finish my book. I just opened a fresh doc for that month so the count was fair (obviously!). I wrote about 24k (I think) and finished. It was all planned out and pretty solid, though needing a very good polish and slight re-structuring. Then over-all edits, of course :)
I'll be doing it again this year, to get possibly half the novel onto first draft, and see me over the first third slump. Though I may try something crazy and let go of time, playing along an interactive plan, picking up story threads until they lose context and dropping them down frame of certain pivotal plot points.
Best of luck! (I at least want to better last years total)
Well, I signed up last year and it was a sweet experience. But the quality of my writing was horrible! I has to run about with my thoughts, I couldn't even check if my story is linked or not...... But I would advise you to go ahead and participate in NanoWrimo because it gives you a superb sense of achievement and it is exciting! :)
PS : I think you have to start fresh with your story.
I'm not knocking writing competitions. I struggle to understand why someone would want to machine-gun 50,000 words in a month.
I couldn't go charging along writing 1700 words a day without checking what I had previously written. I'm always compelled to check and think about the previous passage of my work. It would haunt me if I didn't.
A competition like this is a good way to collect book ideas and recycle them.