But I learned some things about myself in the process:

Listen to your inner voice

It’s silly to take on a new project when you KNOW you don’t have the time to give it the attention it needs. I need to pay attention to that inner voice that says, “You don’t have the time and you aren’t going to make the time to get this done.”

Say no to peer pressure

It’s silly to let peer pressure guide your commitments. Peer pressure can be a great motivator to help you reach your goals. But making a commitment that you know you can’t keep just because of peer pressure is the dark path to guilt that you really don’t need. Do what’s best for you and your novel.

Writing in a group is fabulous

It’s incredibly fun to join in on virtual write-ins. The NaNoWriMo team held them on Twitter, as did my local NaNo Group, the Central Iowa NaNo’ers (#cianano). If you can’t make it physically to a local write-in, join a virtual one.

Did you finish NaNoWriMo this year? What did you learn in the process?

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Low-tech tracking spreadsheet in three different formats from Simon Haynes along with some tips for NaNo and a One-Day Catchup Form to use if you fall behind.

If you need novel writing software, there’s an extended trial on Scrivener and a 50% discount on buying the software for all 2009 NaNo winners.

Jennifer Blanchard of Procrastinating Writers has a review on an ebook from Larry Brooks on story structure. She says it’s a must-read before NaNo starts. Cost is only $10 right now.

Here’s a Squidoo lens with lots of info and links to NaNo resources.

Lynn Viehl has Ten Things for NaNoWriMo’ers – a handy list of links, including NaNo images for your website.

Here’s a NaNoWriMo word meter for your website.

MacWorld has put together a list of novel-writing tools for the Mac.

Are you NaNo’ing this year? Add me as a Writing Buddy.

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To get you started, check out these posts on getting prepared for NaNo from last year:

Creating your characters

Laying out your initial plot

Getting into the proper mindset for NaNo

Writing tips to help you reach 50,000 words

Training yourself to write FAST

How to have fun while doing NaNo

Some tools to use for NaNo

Download a free copy of the NaNoWriMo Survival Guide from Lazette Gifford

Read a review of No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty (founder of NaNo)

To track your progress for NaNo, here’s an updated copy of the tracking spreadsheet originally created by Eric Benson. This is in Open Office format, but you should be able to open it in other spreadsheet programs, as well.

You can sign up to participate in NaNo at their website, www.nanowrimo.org. It’s totally free.

I’ll be participating as well. Got a science fiction novel that I want to get through the first draft. You can follow my progress by adding me as a Writing Buddy. Or follow me on Twitter as I’ll be reporting my progress there, as well.

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Reasons to Find an Agent First

• An agent can function as your first “acceptance” of your book. If you can get an agent to like it enough to represent you, you’re one step closer to getting it published.
• An agent will sometimes work with you on changes to make your book better.
• Agents are better connected in the publishing world and can put your manuscript in front of the editors best positioned to buy it.

Reasons to Find a Publisher First

• Agents can take a long time to respond to a query or a full or partial manuscript, the same as a publisher. By going straight to a publisher, you may shorten the time to acceptance.
• Your position in approaching an agent is stronger when you’ve got a publisher already interested in your book.

Regardless of which you choose, the important thing is that you are submitting your work to somebody.

Finding a Place to Submit Your Novel

There are many places you can check to find agents or publisher to submit your novel to. Here’s a short list of places to start:

• Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market by Writer’s Digest Books
• Writer’s Market Guide to Literary Agents by Writer’s Digest Books
• Writer’s Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents by Jeff Herman fromPrima Press
• Writer’s Handbook by The Writer, Inc
• Writer’s Digest Magazine
• The Writer Magazine
• Mystery Writers of America
• Science Fiction Writers of America
• Horror Writers Association
• Romance Writers of America
• Literary Market Place

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You’re ready for the final step in the process – submitting your novel to someone who will read it, love it, and agree to represent or publish it.

Compared to the other steps in the process – planning, writing, revising – this step is the easiest. All you do is locate some people to send it to and put the manuscript in the mail. That’s a lot less effort than the weeks or months it took you to write the book.

However… while submitting is the physically easiest step in the novel writing process, it’s also the most emotionally difficult for most writers. Why? Because you send your novel out to an agent or an editor and then you wait. And wait. And wait. And then wait some more. And if, by a miracle, you get an answer in a reasonable amount of time (anything less than six months), chances are it is a rejection.

You pour your heart and soul into your book and then someone says, “No thanks, not right for us.” Ack! Stabbed in the heart! Many writers experience anxiety, depression, despair, anger or sadness during the submission process because of the high rate of rejection.

The most important thing you can do for yourself on the submission step is to prepare yourself mentally and emotionally.

Yes, your novel is going to get rejected. Expect it. Prepare for it. And remember one very important thing – rejection of your novel is not a rejection of YOU. It’s not personal. How could it be? The agent or editor doesn’t know you. They have your name and your manuscript, not your life history, not a sense of who you really are.

Rejection is a rather harsh term with a lot of negative associations. It is better for a writer to think of it not as a rejection, but as a “Not right for us” message.

Imagine you’re shopping in an art store. You see a piece of modern art on the wall. A lovely piece, but your taste runs toward Impressionist art, so you pass it by. You reject it. Do you hate the artist? No. Do you feel anything personal toward the artist at all? Hardly. That piece of art just didn’t fit your needs or your tastes at the moment.

It’s the same with a writing rejection. It’s not personal, so read the rejection letter, stick it in a drawer and send the manuscript out again. Somewhere out there is the perfect agent or editor for your novel.

*All statistics are made up by me. Hey, I’m a writer, not a numbers gal.

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Yes, we all want to think that we write perfect prose in our first draft, but that doesn’t happen. Your writing can always be improved. And there are many methods for doing the rewriting, but they all come down to the same basic steps.

1. Read through the manuscript and note problems.
2. Fix the problems.

Personally, I like a little more guidance than that when starting a task that can be huge. If you feel the same, here are some methods that you can use to guide you.

Revision Methods

How to Revise a Novel from Holly Lisle

One-Pass Manuscript Revision: From First Draft to Last in One Cycle from Holly Lisle

Editing by Paperback Writer

Writing Triage by Paperback Writer

Editing and Revising That Won’t Drive You Crazy by Paperback Writer

Self-Editing by Lori Handeland

Editing Made Easy by Lee Masterson

Rewriting the Beast by Lazette Gifford

In a Revision Rut? Try 52-Card Pickup by Carol J. Stephenson

Color My Revisions by Carol J. Stephenson

Autumn Leaves: A Writer’s First Novel Rewrite by Jennifer Shafer

Yes, there are a lot of links and they are only a fraction of the info available on revisions. That’s because revising your novel is a personal process just like the other aspects of writing. You need to figure out what method works for you and use it. Trying out another writer’s process let’s you see if any parts of it will work for you.

If you already have a revision process that works for you, share the details in a comment.

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Step One – Put It On Ice

The first thing you should do now is put your novel away for a while. At least a week, but the longer the better, so a month or two is nice. Why? Because the next step is to revise your novel and you need some distance from it.

Right after you’ve finished your novel, you are deep into your story. You know your characters, your plot events… The story and the characters are perfect in your mind.

But in reality, your novel could use some work. Nobody writes a perfect first draft. Experienced writers or people with a huge amount of raw talent may be able to write a cohesive, exciting story with fully-developed characters, building tension and just the right amount of pacing to keep the reader turning the pages in their first draft of the story. But it isn’t perfect and yours won’t be either.

So put your novel away for a while. Let it take a good long nap.

Step Two – Celebrate

It’s time to party! No matter what shape your story is in, when you have reached the end of it, you should take the time to acknowledge your accomplishment. Lots of people SAY they want to write a book. Very few actually manage to get it done. So Yay for you!

A few suggestions for how to celebrate:

• Have dinner at your favorite restaurant.
• If you have a day job, take a vacation day just for yourself.
• Treat yourself to a new book or journal.
• Download some new songs for your MP3 player to inspire your writing.
• Get a massage, a manicure, a pedicure or some other pampering ritual.
• Post about it on your blog.
• Get together with your friends or writing group.
• Create a scrapbook page or collage to mark the day.

Whatever you do, do something special and memorable for you.

After you’re done celebrating and the story is done resting, it’s time to get back to work and start the revision. We’ll cover some different methods you can use to revise your novel in the next post.

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But I can hear you asking, what about dialogue and pacing, theme, point of view? Those are important, yes, but not right now.

I use my first draft as an opportunity to explore my story world and characters. To understand them, to see if any new ideas for conflict or story events arise. I don’t worry about matters of craft, like dialogue, pacing, theme, point of view, etc. If I tried to keep all of those in mind while writing the first draft, I’d be paralyzed and no words would come out.

No, if you’re a beginning writer, use your first draft to get the story down on paper, nothing more. You can work on the craft stuff while you’re editing your novel. Eventually, when you’ve written enough words in your writing career, you’ll naturally include good dialogue, proper pacing, and most effective point of view in your first drafts.

First Draft Tips

• Write every day. You want to develop a consistent habit.
• Write in small chunks of time, like 10-20 minutes. If you’re pressed for time, keep your story materials handy and write in five minute bursts. The key to making short bursts work is to write as fast as you can in your session.
• No editing! Don’t go back to change anything. If you have a new idea that changes something you’ve already written, make a note somewhere (like your novel journal) and fix it later. You don’t want to lose your forward momentum.
• Don’t worry about clunky writing or dull words. You aren’t trying to write the perfect story, this first time around. You’re exploring the story world and characters and getting the basic story down on paper.

Looking for a program that will provide some encouragement for regular, fast writing? Try the Need for Speed mini course.

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There are lots of resources to help you with your plotting. Let’s start with one of the most common – the various lists of basic plots like these.

One of the best things I’ve learned as a writer is that all of these lists are not plots. (Thank you, Holly Lisle!) They’re conflicts or dramatic situations. Take man vs. nature. Man vs. nature is a type of conflict. It certainly isn’t a series of events which we’ve determined makes a plot.

You can use these conflicts in your story as starting ideas for specific scenes and events however, so they are useful.

But for specific plotting help, it’s nice to have some guidelines.

Plotting Resources

Learn How To Create A Professional Plot Outline -This is the mini-course from Holly where she explains how to use the lists of conflicts to create plot events.

Holly also has an ebook out, Create a Plot Clinic, that gives you a bunch of tools to use for plotting. You can get the first few chapters for free here.

Novel Outlining 101 by Lynn Viehl

Outline Your Novel in 30 Minutes by Alicia Rasley

How to Plot Your Novel by Simon Haynes

Plotting Your Novel by Stella Cameron

The Three Act Structure by Stephen J. Cannell – this is a screenwriting method that many writers adapt for use on novels

Try one of these methods for plotting or several. What works for you on one novel might not work on the next, so don’t be afraid to try different techniques as needed.

Do you have any plotting methods that have worked really well for you?

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Plot is the series of events in your novel that lead to the ending.

My favorite definition for plot is that it is “what happens to people”. A story about a person sitting alone, doing nothing, thinking nothing isn’t much of a story. Something needs to happen to that person, either physically, mentally, or emotionally. There has to be a change of some kind, otherwise your story is static.

In general, you can consider plot to be the series of events that happen throughout your book that your character either causes or must respond to. The events can be mental or cerebral like many literary books. Or they can be world-ending disasters and violent upheavals like in a thriller, scifi or fantasy novel. They can be emotional as two people work toward a lasting relationship, as in a romance novel. Or they can be a mixture of all of these.

The common thread is that things are happening and changing.

So, for your story, you need events. There are two schools of thought about plotting in the writing community – the plotters vs. the pantsers.

The first group, the plotters, believe in planning out the story events before writing the first draft. The second group, the pantsers, believe in just setting down and writing whatever comes to mind.

There are pros and cons to each method and neither one of them is the definitive correct method you should use. You should use the one that works for you. The only real difference between them is whether the plotting is done before you start writing or if you do it while you are writing.

For some guidelines on trying each method, check out Plotters vs. Pantsers – Which is Better?

You’ve got some characters and now you need some events. My next post will give you some different plotting resources that you can use to come up with those events.

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