Post for self-assembly by the user

I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m a Man of Steel – I have a blood condition which means I accumulate iron. Fridge magnets stick to me. I clank when I walk. In rain, I rust.

The solution to this is regular blood donations: they just take my iron-rich blood and either discard it or offer it to someone else. And yesterday, I was in the hospital – again – for one of these draws.

Usually, the process has been fast, efficient and largely painless. The needle they use is a real whopper, but I’ve got big bulgy veins and I’m not squeamish about needles, and it’s all been fine.

Yesterday, however, I got a rather nervous trainee nurse, who made a real mess of things. She scratched around painfully inside my arm and constantly fiddled with the needle, while, all the time, blood was dripping off my arm, because she’d made a mess of the original insertion.

It wasn’t a lot of fun – and then once I’d filled my pint-bag of blood, the trainee realised she’d forgotten to take any blood samples, so we had to go again in my other, less battered arm. She kept saying, “Sorry, sorry, sorry”, which didn’t really help my declining faith in her competence.

Also: for some reason, I don’t know why, my body absolutely hates having blood taken from it, and I always feel wiped out afterwards. After yesterday’s shenanigans, I feel extra flat.

For that reason, this email has collapsed into a pile of fragments: it’s like a flat-pack email for you to assemble at your leisure. I haven’t counted bolts and screws, though, so I’m not even sure the whole thing will hold together. I’ve listed the part numbers, but they may be in the wrong order. Oh yes, and some parts are heavy, so please lift carefully, using your legs not your back.

Oh yes, and the theme is Nanowrimo. So, um, you’re building a Nanowrimo kit. Or something like that.

Part 1: Nanowrimo

Stands for National Novel Writing Month. Except that the thing is international, isn’t it, so it should probably be World Novel Writing Month, or Wornowrimo.

Part 2: November

The first frosts. Late-fallen apples. A last-blooming rose. And – yes, a freshly-baked novel. One smelling of roasted chestnuts and spiced pumpkin. Nanowrimo takes place in November, so this email may only be a pile of pieces but it is at least perfectly timed, no?

Part 3a: Brave New World

A Wiki-style blog about the origin of the 50,000 word target reports that, “The 50,000-word goal came to be when NaNoWriMo founder Chris Baty chose the shortest novel on his shelf (rumored to be Brave New World), did a rough word count estimate, and came up with 50,000 words.”

Part 3b: Brave New World again

Brave New World is actually 64,575 words long, so the 50K word count is much less than the shortest novel on Chris Baty’s shelves.

Part 3c: Because you have to mention The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is about 48,000 words. It is essential to record this fact in absolutely any discussion of Nanowrimo word counts.

Part 3d: The real world

In the real world of trad publishing, 50,000 words is way too short for any novel at all, except for really exceptional literary novels and, even then, ones mostly produced by literary writers who have already secured acclaim and, with it, the right to break the rules.

It’s true that those rules don’t quite apply to self-publishing and, for example, the romance market may see some quite short novels. But for the most part, commercial novels start at about 70 or 75,000 words and go up from there. I think all my novels are over 100,000 words and often well over. The reason why word counts hover at this sort of level is that it turns out that’s what readers find satisfying.

Part 17: Housekeeping

Please don’t forget that, every Thursday, I’m going to be buzzing around Townhouse looking at your work. I’ll be focusing especially on the work of Premium Members, but I hope we get a good peer-to-peer vibe going no matter what. I’ll be mostly busy from 12.00 to 2.00 GMT, but if you are in Singapore, or California, or just too busy battling brigands in the Atlas Mountains, then upload your work for comment beforehand and check in again afterhand.

Yes: I know afterhand is not a word, but it ought to be.

Yes: I know that Part 17 should not logically follow Part 3d, but have I at any point promised you logic? I have not.

Part 4: Raoul Silva

There’s a Bond movie, where the bad guy, Raoul Silva, says, “Do you see what comes of all this running around, Mr. Bond? All this jumping and fighting, it’s exhausting! Relax. You need to relax.”

So that’s one school of thought about Nanowrimo, the Raoul Silva school, which says simply: forget it. Why work hard to produce a novel that’s definitely too short? And, since you’re producing it under pressure, that first draft isn’t likely to be much good anyway.

And relaxation is nice, no?

Part 5: James Bond / running around

Pretty obviously, James Bond doesn’t relax and does do lots more running around.

Pretty obviously, Nanowrimo people do the (writing equivalent of the) same thing.

Oh yes, and James Bond always wins in the end, except in the most recent film, obvs, except even there he sort of wins, he just gets exploded. This last fact may not be relevant.

Part 6: Habits

Yes, but.

Habits.

Part 7: Replacement part

Some users have pointed out that Part 6 is not in fact usable. The little metal stick thing that’s meant to screw into the hole doesn’t in fact fit. And there isn’t even a hole. Users are therefore advised to replace the current part 6 with the following replacement part:

The thing about good habits is that you want to reinforce them. The thing about bad habits is that you want to shatter them – and keep them shattered.

Nanowrimo can do both things. The sheer pace demanded of you requires you to destroy the bad, retain the good. Do you procrastinate for forty minutes before you start to write seriously? Do you have a social media app open and active while you are theoretically concentrating? Nanowrimo’s beautiful brutishness can cure you of those habits.

There’s something about writing a lot of text fast that gives you a kind of proof of concept. This hard thing is doable. This mountain can be climbed.

Part 8: Craft

I talk a lot about craft – writing technique. I have a feeling that this part belongs somewhere in this email. I’m not sure where, and I can’t find any instructions.

Part 9: The first draft

The 50,000 words you write as part of Nanowrimo? They are not likely to be good.

Part 10: WELL, THEY’RE NOT THE POLICE, ARE THEY?

No.

The Nanowrimo non-profit organisation is definitely not a police force. And if they were, they’d be the sort that let’s would allow you to swap hats with a police officer and take selfies. They wouldn’t be the sort to beat you to a pulp, then charge you with resisting arrest.

I think the purpose of this part is simply to say that if you want to switch the rules around for yourself, you can. I suggest you keep that 50,000 word count target, because that’s kind of the point of the whole thing, but I also suggest you don’t think of that 50,000 words as a novel, because it won’t be that.

Part 11: Planning

Ah, yes. This part should probably have been bolted down first, but I’ve only just found it.

Really: your Nanowrimo experience is going to go better if you have some kind of rough plan for what you’re going to be writing. If you just plunge in – well, you might end up with a book that’s as poorly planned as this email.

Part 12: Editing

Every first draft is good because all it has to do is exist, right?

Writing = delivering stone to the site

Editing = putting them in the right place

Part 13: Bonus part, not needed for final assembly

I knew a writer who was given a ridiculously short deadline by her publisher. I urged her to produce 100,000 words, delivered in alphabetical order, starting with 652 repetitions of the word “a”.

I said she should say to them that here were the words they wanted; she just didn’t have time to put them in the right order.

She did not take my advice.

Part 14: A cup of coffee with a friend

I’ve just had a cup of coffee with a friend. The friend did an MA in creative writing (that would be an MFA in American.) In the course of the MA, her longest extended piece of writing was 17,000 words and what’s the point of that?

In a way, the thuggishness of nanowrimo is its best thing.

Just do it. Change the scale of what you think you’re capable of.

Part 15: having kids vs nanowrimo

I have never done Nanowrimo and I never will. I edit as I write, and I’m a fidgety, perfectionist editor, so I never accumulate a lot of text fast. That’s just not my thing.

But – I did have four kids in less than two years and if you want to shift expectations fast, that’s not a bad way to do it.

Uninterrupted thinking time? No.

A just get on with it approach? Yes.

Advantages of Nanowrimo: less costly, less smelly, less crying, fewer night feeds.

Advantages of having kids: um …

Part 16: the bit where I say bye bye

Bye bye