How to Write a Novel in 30 Days

Getting in my 2000 words in Thailand

Yes it’s possible to write a novel in 30 days and still have lots of time left on your hands. You just have to be disciplined.

You hear all the time about the writers who take, or took, years to write a single, 60K word novel. They sweated over every single word, toiled over every sentence, lost sleep over every paragraph, only to toss the whole damn thing out in the end. This is a sad state of affairs during any era, but in this, the new golden age of fiction writing, it is downright tragic.

The Need for Proliferation

Readers…serious serial readers…crave content. I’m talking the readers who can devour a book or sometimes two books per day. These are the people writers like me are targeting. The readers who will read my books as fast as me and my various publishers can put them out. Relatively speaking, there aren’t that many serial readers out there, but all you need is a fraction of them who read (or listen in the case of audio books) all your stuff in order to make a very nice living.

The Need to Write Fast

Proliferation not only takes talent, it takes speed. But speed, my friends, is relative. I know authors who are penning not one book per month, but two and even three, plus writing blogs and articles in their spare time. Many of these authors have families and perhaps part-time jobs. So where do they find the time to write so many books? They don’t find the time. They make the time.

How to Write a Novel in 30 Days

Time for some math (or maths as the Brits like to say). A single, double-spaced page of copy contains approximately 250 words. Four of those pages will get you 1,000 words. First thing I do when I wake up in the morning, is grab the coffee, sit down and write about 1,000 new words on average, meaning sometimes it’s 750 words, and other times, 1250. But you get the point.

The writing session usually takes me an hour to an hour and a half. I take little breaks in between to heat up my coffee, or just go outside and breathe the fresh air. When that hour and a half session is done, I go for a short run and lift some weights. That also takes me about an hour and a half. After that, I’ll shower up, and sit back down at my desk where I’ll write maybe another 500 words. This takes me into lunch time.

Lunch is usually enjoyed at my desk, where I’ll write another 250 to 500 words. When that’s done, I like to break for a quick nap. The nap is essential in that I feel like a brand new man when it’s done (I don’t really sleep. It’s more like entering into a meditative state). Back at my desk with a brand new cup of coffee by my side, I will either complete my 2,000 words, or if they are already done, I might write a few more just to get ahead so that perhaps I can take Sunday off. Or, I’ll edit the words I’ve already written along the way.

Speaking of the editing process…

Edit as You Go

For me, writing a novel in a month’s time requires that I edit my words as I write them. This provides me with two advantages over those who simply plow through a first draft. It not only allows me to write semi-error free, tight sentences the first time around, it also keeps my literary train on the tracks, rather than veer off the rails into a place my story has no business of going.

Which leads me to…

Outline as You Go         

I’m not necessarily a pantser nor do I rely on detailed outlines. This is art after all, and art has a way of taking over and going where it will if you don’t reign it in, within reason that is (see the above metaphor about going off the rails). But like Hemingway once said, what’s the best way to ensure that come the next morning, you’ll be able to carry on with your story? It’s by knowing what’s going to happen next.

That said, not only do I stop for the day in a place where I know what’s going to happen next, I outline along the way by jotting down two or three story points that will keep the narrative flowing come the following morning. Do that consistently and you will never ever have to worry about writer’s block again.

And in The End

If you’ve stuck to your 2,000 word per day schedule. If you’ve been disciplined enough to edit what you’ve written every single day, if you’ve outlined along the way, then by day 30 (or perhaps even sooner), you will have completed your novel.

So what do you do with the rest of your time?

Write some articles for the Vox. 

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