Why be a Nanowriter?

This is actually the first article for the Nanowriter series. I wrote and published the second article first. 

Have you ever participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November? This is an event, started by amateur writers, in which one attempts to write a 50000 word novel in 30 days. This requires working at a pace of 1667 words per day, or a little under seven pages per day. (Writers from the typewriter age tend to express their output in typewritten pages per day--- the standard conversion rate is 250 words per page.)

While writing at this pace is often described by the amateur participants as 'madness', this writing pace is actually not at all unfamiliar to the career novelist.

Michael Moorcock, in the early days of his career, wrote a great number of his
sword-and-sorcery books in 3 to 10 days. This includes his most famous books about the tormented hero Elric--- books that are still sought after and read today.

Lawrence Block, during his earliest writing years, wrote soft-core pornographic novels at a rate of one a month just to keep paying the rent. These books, though full of naughtiness, still had one-half of each chapter which could be used as practice for things like plotting, characterization and other things one can use in real novels. Block wrote the pornography books in 10 working days, taking the weekends off, and then had the rest of the month to work on his mystery short stories. He also sometimes worked with Donald Westlake as co-author--- the two men alternated chapters.

Many other prolific authors have at some point written at the seven pages per day pace or better. For novels longer than 50000 words--- and most genres today demand a minimum of 60000-80000 words--- this pace will demand close to two months before you type 'The End'.

This writing pace is often adopted for bread-and-butter reasons. For the lowest-paying sorts of fiction, only the fast writer can make enough money to write full time or to subsist with a low-paying day job.

There are other advantages to writing at this pace. If you are dealing with an executive function deficit or attention deficit, as is the norm in Asperger Syndrome or Attention Deficit Disorder, dragging out the writing process increases the chance that you will become so distracted that you will drop the current novel altogether six months or a year down the road.

The fast clip also keeps you in the story. You don't have to start each day's session consulting your notes as to the major characters' first names and significant characteristics, because you've been working intensely with them every day.

My name for this kind of fast-pace writing is nanowriting--- not just in reference to the nickname of National Novel Writing Month, but because, compared to the kind of writing in which an author takes five to ten years to write a novel, the nanowriter seems to get done 'in a nanosecond'.

Who should consider becoming a nanowriter? The unpublished beginning author, for one. There is a danger in the beginning writer's becoming too caught up in a first novel, endlessly polishing it, rewriting it, sending it out to publishers and waiting to start a second novel until the first novel's fate has been decided.

This is a kind of poverty of the writer's mind--- you stick to that first novel because you are afraid there are not going to be any others. Nanowriting can cure that. Once you prove to yourself that you can do it, you know that you are only 10 or 20 or 30 or 45 days away from having a whole new novel in first draft. You'll know you have riches of novels in your head and you can get them out.

So if you, like Stephen King, have to write four or five novels before you write one that can find a publisher, you can cope. Because you know you are producing them at a good pace. The early-career published writer also might consider being a nanowriter.

According to literary agent Donald Maass in 'The Career Novelist', it takes 5 novels in one genre to establish yourself as a writer. These five novels must be written rapidly enough that the first one is still in print when the fifth comes out.

Writing at a fast clip ensures you can publish at the minimum required pace to establish yourself. In addition, writing rapidly gives you a better chance to make a living as a writer. You may end up writing one type of novels for one publisher, and a second type for another, perhaps under another name. If you can do this competently, you make yourself much more attractive to the best literary agents.

The article series 'Nanowriter' is meant to help you learn to write at a beneficial fast pace--- not just to earn bragging rights at the National Novel Writing Month's forums, but to help you achieve your dream of not only getting published, but of becoming a career novelist.