How Writing One Novella Helped Me to Explore New Avenues as a Writer

 

On Monday, March 10, I have a new book coming out. Curse of the Blood Witch is a vampire horror novella. When I wrote this book for NaNoWriMo many years ago, I did not get it to 50,000 words. However, I spent a long time taking it through several revisions, and when I was done with it, the final word count was at   46, 860 words. Still not 50K but still a good enough length to be called a novel.

 

Thing of it is, though, this book almost didn’t end up with a publisher.

 

After years of rejections, I gave up on trying to find a publisher or agent interested in it. I put it away and moved on to other books.

 

Then, one evening, a flock of bats flew over my house. After I posted about this on Facebook, I joked that perhaps they are vampire bats trying to convince me to submit my vampire horror novel once again. One of my friends (an actual friend who is no longer a Facebook friend) jumped on this and encouraged me to do just that. It was as though the bats had spoken! I grudgingly agreed to try to find a home for this book again, not holding out much hope.

 

This was hammered home after I received yet another rejection from a publisher.

 

Frustrated, I threw the manuscript to my beta readers, who dutifully responded with tons of suggestions and help in tweaking the manuscript. I took what advice I felt was helpful, cut gigantic chunks from what I had as a novel, and submitted the now novella-length manuscript off to a publisher. That publisher accepted the manuscript and I was thrilled it finally found a home!

 

But it’s not just this experience with writing a book that I am surprised about.

 

There are a few things, too…

 

I never thought I would write a vampire novel or novella. I love reading these kinds of books, but writing vampire fiction has not exactly been my strength. Ever since I started writing it, however, I have experimented with writing vampire short stories. I feel this is helping me to improve my ability to write vampire fiction.

 

I never thought I would write a story based on an historical figure. The main vampire in my novella is bitten by a vampire who carried the power of Elizabeth Bathory. Several years ago, my oldest created a Halloween costume dubbed a “blood witch.” At that time, I was reading about the life of Elizabeth Bathory. In my reading, I learned that she was exposed to the occult, as her family dabbled in black magic and the supernatural. This coupled with all of the legends of vampirism surrounding Elizabeth Bathory made me come up with a creation of her as a blood witch.

 

I never thought I would write an Alternate Universe (AU) story. Everything in the novella about Elizabeth Bathory is pure fabrication created to make my story work. You could say it’s an AU story, because in this story, Bathory escaped from her imprisonment and she had been an actual vampire. Everything that happens in the story follows what would have happened had she escaped. However, my own fictional version of Bathory is portrayed only in the Prologue. (And, yes, I kept the prologue. I let my publisher decide whether or not to leave it in the story and she said to leave it in.)

 

With this over and done with, I can’t help but think if I might ever end up writing another AU story based on a person in history. Anything is possible, and if this does happen again, maybe I will once again try my hand at writing another type of fiction I hadn’t tried writing before.

 

How I (Finally) Managed to Write a 50K-word Novel for NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as it is often called, is an annual online event which takes place every November. Whenever this event is about to roll around, a lot of writers I know start making plans for their 30 days of a novel-writing spree. Ideas for a novel to write are tossed around, outlines are created, a schedule is set up and everyone they know is warned that they will either disappear at times to get some writing done or they will be too cranky to communicate due to lack of sleep.

 

I wrote my first novel when I was in my teens. There were many days I passed the free moments I had in high school to write in my notebook. After my first novel was published and later republished, that “novelist” title I had finally achieved placed me among the ranks of writers I knew who had also written novels. I was hooked on writing them! So, naturally, trying my hand at NaNoWriMo was something I considered trying.

 

Unfortunately, my attempts to write those 50,000 words did not go very well!

 

There was one time I tried to do NaNoWriMo, but I was also working as a freelance journalist at the time, and after my editor handed me an assignment, all efforts to write a novel went to the back burner so that I could meet my deadline.

 

My next attempt at NaNoWriMo was a semi-win. I DID write a new novel, but it was actually more of a novella. It came in at 30,000 words and not the required fifty. There was just no more story to write. I didn’t want to be one of those writers who filled their manuscript up with useless writing, unimportant scenes, fluff or gibberish in order to get to 50K words, so I just left it at that. My writer friends assured me that this was not so terrible and congratulated me on writing a new book. (That novella is STILL a novella after I revised it years later. It is currently with a publisher!)

The same thing happened again another year I tried to do NaNoWriMo, and I took solace in the fact that at least I had another novella written.

 

Then I tried doing NaNoWriMo another year. This, too, did not go well, because I could only write one chapter before I was seriously blocked. My many attempts to get unblocked and get back to writing that novel were not successful, so I withdrew.

 

This block happened again another year with another novel attempt, but I at least wrote summaries for ALL of the chapters of that book. That was better than not being able to move past Chapter One! At least I had the whole story figured out, but I just couldn’t get the words for the story onto paper.

 

When I made the decision to try NaNoWriMo again this year, I vowed that this year would be different. After all, this year was different for everything else writing-related in my life: I was earning more as a freelance writer, I was succeeding in my new venture as a content writer, I had submitted manuscripts to publishers, I am once again looking for an agent to represent my novels, and I have managed to write several ebooks.

 

Plus, I was writing again! I finally got back to writing in late 2020, after enduring a serious creative block while I was recovering from an illness, when I wrote a whole nonfiction book in my notebook, and I figured that trying to do NaNoWriMo this year would be the ultimate challenge to prove I was able to write a novel in 30 days. I believed I could do it. I had faith that I could do it.

 

And having an idea for a novel in my head for a few months helped. I was ready to start writing it!

 

Before I got started, though, I had to ask myself: Should I outline this novel or not? I had A LOT of information about this novel in my head and I was confident that I could at least get started writing it. So, I decided to take the pantser approach, rather than the planner approach. I just decided to wing it!

 

Soon after I got started writing, though, I definitely had to create an outline. The story was coming to me too fast so I had to write everything down before I lost it. All that writing down was separated into chapters. I also used this sheet of paper for any notes or ideas.

 

Having that outline helped A LOT as I continued writing the novel. I wrote the novel on my laptop because we only have one computer in this house, and I needed something that I could have access to at any time. The laptop was that very thing. I wrote the novel at the desk in my bedroom, on the living room couch, and at the kitchen table.

 

Some writers plan their writing time but, for me, it was not so much planning for when I would write in the novel, but just when I would have that undisturbed time to write – which was in the evenings. I would spend the day thinking about the next chapter to write, and then sit down that night to write it. This was unusual for me, as I normally did my writing in the early hours of the mornings while everybody was asleep, but for some reason, writing this novel at night just happened on its own. I joked to my kids that I was a “night writer.” I was often up until midnight writing (yes, I was burning that midnight oil!). Sometimes these writing sessions started at 9PM, and at other times, 10PM.

 

When I got started writing this novel, I decided I would write 2000 words every day to meet my 50K-word goal. Unfortunately, some days were just too busy, and I didn’t get to write in the novel, but they were only a few days out of all 30 days of November. I kept tabs on my word counts and figured out how many words I needed to write once I was back at it in order to get back on track to reaching 50K words. With that effort, I managed to reach 50K words on November 29^th.

 

Ultimately, though, the big thing that helped me to reach my goal of writing a 50,000-word novel in one month was discipline. I had to have the discipline to get my butt in the chair every day and WRITE! (Seriously, you have to be disciplined if you want to succeed at NaNoWriMo. There were many times I didn't "feel like" writing or wasn't inspired, but I still did the writing anyway!) Even when I had no clue how to start a chapter or couldn’t figure out how to resolve something in the chapter, I sat at the desk and stared at that blank screen, pushing myself to write something. Gradually, ideas came to me, and I soon started writing. I also figured things out when I got to that certain point in the chapter. (Sometimes, you just have to write anyway even if you can’t figure something out ahead of time.) But the discipline to write every day – or to TRY to write every day – is very important in order to achieve the goal of writing a novel in a month.

 

The same goes if you want to write a novel at any other time of the year, or even a book. You need to have the discipline to keep at it. Keep going. Keep writing.

 

I’m thrilled I was able to finally succeed at NaNoWriMo this year. It was a huge accomplishment for me. I finally did it! YAY!

 

And therein lies another lesson I learned: DON’T EVER GIVE UP!! If you really want to do something, keep trying. It took me many attempts to succeed at NaNoWriMo. I didn’t succeed on my first try! Or even my second try! But I kept trying until I finally did succeed. I never gave up on it! It was important to me to be able to do this, so I kept trying. I tried and tried again. And I have finally succeeded.

 

And you know what? It was worth it. The sheer joy I felt at FINALLY achieving this goal was such a wonderful moment to experience. It was a really great feeling. I’m so glad I hung in there, that I never gave up, and that I gave it another try. Because of that, I finally did it. I finally wrote a 50,000-word novel for NaNoWriMo.

 

And now to see if I will be able to do it again!