How to Write Your Book in 30 Days

If you’d asked me a few years ago for a NaNoWriMo post about how to write a novel in 30 days, I would have been all over it, maniacally sharing my top quantitative how-tos, so you can essentially turn yourself into a writing robot, take no prisoners, and get that draft done in thirty days or less.

Today, though? I can tell you from hard-earned experience:

The traditional, burning-the-candle-at-both-ends-to-servive-your-NaNo-goals likely ain’t worth it.

But! Don’t stop reading just yet. Because the ‘untraditional NaNo’ version of it that I’d like to share with you today?

It’s so worth it.

But far too often, I’ve seen people sign up for these Writing IronMans, without having done the proper mental, physical, or emotional prep. And the result is often a sense of burnout, sadness, or resentment over the fact that one is (shockingly!) human.

Why?

The way you reach a goal will reflect how you created the goal.

There is a way to approach these big writing goals in a way that feels GOOD, and that’s what I want to share with you today.
So, full disclosures and caveats here first:

It is hard to write a book. I’ve written so many books at this point, and the minute I finish one, I immediately forget how I did it. Utterly and completely.

It is even harder to write a book in a month.

But, with the right mindset and physical parameters, it can be a really rewarding experience — and useful for one’s creative career. It’s a good skill to have in your back pocket.

Caveat two: It’s always nice to know who you’re taking advice or guidance from. Have I ever actually written a book in a month? Yes.

At this point in my writing career, I’ve written about 15-20 novels, 6 of which were published. Four of those six were drafted in about 4 weeks. (Drafted. Not “done”. Details matter here!)

My writing approach is fairly scientific, because I generally believe that the only advice worth sharing is what can be (generally) repeatable for others. That said, we’re all unique and creative kumquats here, so your mileage may vary.

So, while I am now someone who would only recommend this kind of pacing for those who are well supported in achieving it, I also arrive here having done the thing several times, and I do have a few tips that I’d recommend for anyone pursuing the NaNo goal. (Or starting any creative goal that has a tighter, constrained deadline.)

Because let’s be real: You’re not actually “writing your novel” in 30 days. That’s about as click-baity as it gets, but it’s inescapable in this dialogue.

Instead, you’re starting the process of writing your novel, and creating (hopefully) a solid foundation of writing-clay to support the work-to-come to flesh out, revise, edit, and polish that book — which will no doubt take many, many months. And that’s all awesome, normal, and to be expected — no matter how talented a writer you are.

So, with that on the table, here are a few perspective shifts and tips if you’re partaking in a writing or creative challenge. Let’s do it!

1) Get your metrics straight.

The wrong goal here can sour your whole experience.

Is your goal to write the next great American novel in 30 days? Or even, a fantastic novel in 30 days? Nope. It’s just to write 50,000 words (or whatever the goal is), and to get the stuff that’s currently in your head out onto paper or screen with the least amount of resistance or stress possible. That’s it, and that’s all.

Remember, you’re not creating the sculpture here. You’re just creating the clay.

I’ve heard that we should let ourselves write “shitty first drafts”. I go even further and request that what I write doesn’t even have to resemble a draft at all. If part of my wordcount includes notes to myself about how the book needs to connect later on, that counts. But wait! That’s cheating! (I can hear someone from here!)

Nope, it’s not. You make the rules! 

Just because the words don’t end up in the finished product doesn’t mean they are not crucially helpful to the book itself. You don’t see the underpainting of the Mona Lisa either, but it sure as heck matters.

Likewise, you can get really creative with this the lens you use while you write. I love revision and I hate drafting. To help me get to revisions faster, on my third novel, I actually started writing drafts that were only dialogue.

I would literally close my eyes, see the actions in my mind, and then transcribe only the dialogue that took place during those actions. Everything that came after I dubbed “revision”, and I would then take more time to flesh out the actions in an interesting way, rather than getting caught up trying to nail down both action and dialogue in the same “take”. So, my drafting “lens” is dialogue, and an editing lens is fleshing out action.

It’s a mind game, but that’s creativity for ya. If there’s a part of drafting that you hate, can you leave it out? Can you sidestep the things that drag you down, for the purposes of getting just enough on the page to work with?

You set the goal. You set the tone. You’re both the director and the writer, so let yourself experiment with different ways of approaching the story.

If something works, it works.

2) Don’t show up without knowing where you want to go.

This will depend on the kind of writer you are. Shocking nobody, I am not the kind of writer who likes to pants all over the place. I am a plotter — and often, even though I rarely stick with a plot I’ve sketched out, the true plot can only reveal itself when I’ve got the guardrails of my intentions setting the tone.

So, I never sit down to write a scene without actually knowing what scene I’m writing. Or, in the very least, what action has to take place. (A good way to facilitate this is to always leave yourself some threads from a previous scene from your last writing session.)

All good stories have a formula (even the ones you think that buck the formulas!), so it’s endlessly helpful for me to have a general shape and structure in mind before sitting down to write each scene. If you need to, make a list of the actual scenes that need to happen, and then find your most exciting and least time-consuming lens to explore them. (As above, for me that’s dialogue.)

3) Speaking of scenes, stick to TANGIBLE scenes for the first draft.

What’s that mean? Stick to writing the story beats that will actually move your book forward. It helps me to make a list of all the things that must happen in very simple forms. Examples:

Character A needs to learn that his wife has been murdered by a one-armed man.

Character B needs to go on a behind-the-scenes science explainer of a dinosaur park.

Character C needs to win a game of poker and win tickets to board this cool, new ship, called the Titanic.

Whatever actual things that must happen in your story all take place in scenes, and you may find that a scene-focused writing session is waaaay easier to get your head around then a book-focused writing session.

Writing nonfiction? No worries — just sub in your key elements, stories, and take home messages that you want to share and go from there.

Have tons of character notes and emotional beats you want to include or remember? Create a “margin section” for each scene to download this stuff from your brain, even if it’s messy and just for you. (And count these words, too!)

4) Don’t worry about chronology, transitions, or stringing things together.

Brains are funny things. (Especially the brains of creative people!)

You may have an entire story or book idea in your head, but there’s an exceedingly small chance it’s going to appear to your chronologically. And there’s a zero percent chance it will sparkle on the page like it does in your mind.

So, ditch any and all ideas of “making it make sense” as it all fits together logically, from scene to scene.

Stuff like transitions, explainers, fleshing out and all the rest can each have their own revision passes — and once there, you can shape and shift the clay you’ve created.

For your challenge month, just stick to creating the clay.

If it helps, don’t even think that you’re writing a book — instead just think that you’re creating individual scenes. You can trust that they’ll all find their place eventually, but it’s too much for your brain to wrangle if you’re trying to shape the clay and create it at the same time.

5) If you hate Tip #3 with a fiery passion, decide if you’re shaping or creating the clay each time you write.

I’d be a liar and terribly unhelpful if I said that I stick to the create the clay tip all the time, so if you’re the type of writer who likes to edit as you go, don’t fault yourself for that — just know what you’re doing when you’re doing it.

Personally, I do my best to focus on creating the clay, but I also know that, when a scene is wrong and needs editing to change or clarify something major, not letting myself do that will hold me back. There’s a big difference between perfectionist, frivolous editing and crucial editing to continue your story momentum.

So, I let myself edit if I’m dying to do so.

But, if you do this, make a big deal about it in your mind, so you know “I’m editing this right now and bringing out a different type of focus, but once this is done, I’m going to go back to creating clay and not be so persnickety about what I write.”

This helps me, and you’ll probably get an internal sense of ‘okay phew!’ when the offending scene or passage has gelled enough to move out of editing mode, and back into writing mode. Make sure you get up and walk around a bit before swapping lenses like this, from writing to editing — that will create some necessary space for your brain to shift gears.

Trust yourself. All rules are made to be broken, even mine.

6) Focus on writing your popcorn scenes.

I’ve said before that I wouldn’t have a writing career were it not for Tom Cruise.

Here though, I’m talking about his notion of “popcorn scenes” — meaning, every story has a handful of key scenes that everyone will be talking about if they read your book. These are the big hitter “set pieces” that Oprah would want to discuss with you in an interview, no matter what you write.

Do you know what yours are? Hint: What are you excited to write?

Tom Cruise’s set pieces are often making bonkers-level leaps off of high structures. Yours don’t need to be nearly so actiony, but they will be memorable. Other key set pieces from famous lit include:

• Frodo deciding to take the ring to Mordor, and the fellowship forming
• Matilda knocking over the glass of water with her mind
• Mark Watney blowing up his potatoes on Mars

Or, if your book were a movie, what scenes would you actually be excited to see on screen? Always start there, and prioritize writing your popcorn scenes whenever the come up, because that’s where the creative mojo lives.

Don’t worry about where they fit (see point 4!), just get them down on paper. This will help you keep the momentum of writing, but it will also help keep your motivation up, because writing big, fun scenes is empowering.

Extra tip: If you’re bored writing it, it likely doesn’t need to be in the book. Writing is hard, but it shouldn’t be mind-numbing.

7) If you get overwhelmed, think weekly, not daily.

Even after writing a bunch of books in short periods of time, I have never gotten over the annoyance of having a “daily writing goal”.

It feels way too constricting to me, and I find myself working from a state of reaction (the annoyance of a daily goal), instead of creation.

What’s worked for me in the past is having a weekly writing goal instead — and letting myself to pretty fast and loose about how I get there. Letting myself have days where I have 'meh output’ allows me the breathing room to support the days of great output.

What matters most here is knowing yourself. Are you someone who needs a bit more of a tighter schedule to keep you on task? If so, do your best to stick with it. But if you can sense deep down that you’re crushing your creative spirit to stick to something that feels gross or numbing to you, give yourself the freedom to ditch it.

There’s a weird vibe out there around “real writers write everyday!” to which I have to gently say that I’ve got 20+ books out as we speak, and I absolutely do not and did not write everyday.

Real writers write at some point. The details are up for grabs.

8) Remember that these challenges are all arbitrary.

All of them.

Not to be the party pooper here, but NaNoWriMo, the 100 Day Project, and all other creative challenges are all in our heads.

Yeah, I know that doesn’t mean they aren’t real! But it’s worth mentioning that these are very privileged, arbitrary challenges and prooooobably not worth getting down on yourself about if you don’t “complete” them as intended. And they’re certainly not worth degrading your physical, emotional, or mental well being.

Books are important — but health is more important, and it’s up to you to find the juicy balance between creative challenge and burnout.

What do you call the person who “fails” NaNo, and only wrote 20, 30, or 40,000 words during the month?

A person who’s now 20, 30, or 40,000 words into her freakin’ book — and that’s spectacular.

Sometimes, life happens.

Your job isn’t just to create the book. It’s to create the person who can hold the balancing of it all.

9) Above all, take on this challenge in service of your book and your creativity.

You’re not parking yourself at a laptop every day to serve your ego, right? And you’re not here for the arbitrary metric of hitting a goal that doesn’t really help you in the long run, either. Instead, you’ve got to be fiercely focused on the real goal — the long game of it all.

To me, that’s the only goal worth taking on during these challenges:

You’re here for your book and your creativity. That’s it.

That means that, if you realize halfway through that your plot is all wrong and you need to toss most of what you’ve got — that’s okay, because this still helps your book.

A clearer focus is infinitely more valuable than an “I Won NaNo!” boost.

If you spend the entire month learning ways of writing that don’t really work for you — that’s okay, because you’ve learned some valuable lessons that will help your creativity and future projects.

A deeper understanding of what doesn’t feel good to you will always help you find what does.

If you only get halfway through and realize that you’re way happier not having a super tight, self imposed deadline — that’s okay, because you’ve learned more about how to balance your human life with your writer life.

Knowing the type of deadlines that spark your creativity is always a win.

To wrap up this column, I want to remind you of one last thing:

There’s a lot of flash and glamour around the idea of writing a book in a short amount of time, but just know that your book doesn’t care how you create it.

It just cares that you create it.

I’ve said before that I don’t like sharing a lot of craft advice, and that’s because it’s sort of like sharing winning lottery numbers after the fact.

Our brains, approaches, and motivations are all so different, so finding repeatable tactics that will work for everyone is impossible. But, maybe a focus on the how isn’t as valuable as reminding ourselves of what we do have in common:

If you’ve got a book in you, the ability to finally set it free is deeply rewarding, powerful, and worth your time.

Some books will get published. Some will free up space to write other things. And some will help you understand yourself, and what matters to you.

But they’re all worth it.

How do you write a book?

You get the words from your head and onto a page, however best works for you.

And if it works for you, it works.