Why You Should Write a Book in June
This month for the A to Z challenge, I’m highlighting twenty-six reasons (alphabetically, of course) why you should write a book in June.
JuNoWriMo is our spin off of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) that takes place in June, challenging you to write 50,000 words in thirty days. In the past two years, JuNoWriMo has inspired hundreds of writers to get their books written, and I’ve asked a few of them to share their personal stories. Today Jessie Sanders sums up her experience in one word: Diversity.
Why should you write a book in June? THIS is why.
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D is for Diversity by Jessie Sanders
Last year, June came at a pause between novels for me. I had finished writing the second book in my Grover Cleveland Academy series and was waiting for the cover so it could be published. And I wasn’t yet ready to pick up my rough draft of Grover Cleveland Academy #3. I thought JuNoWriMo would be a great time to work on something Completely Different!
I don’t know if this is true for all people, for all writers, or just me. But there always comes a point where I’ve watched or read too much of one thing and start to think, “I could do this so much better.” Last year, I started to think that about vampires. Naturally. Over the past year or so I had been developing my own vampire lore and characters. I thought, why not finally take a crack at writing my vampire novel for JuNoWriMo 2013? So I did.
Working on Lost Causes was both fun and challenging. It was something I had never done before but something that has been overdone in media, so every word was a struggle and a reward.
Then, ten thousand words in, I succumbed to two mindsets. One was, “I can’t do vampires!” The other was guilt that I was writing something that I wasn’t sure I would ever publish, that I was only writing for “fun,” when there was a backlog of other stories on my computer that I wanted to publish but still needed lots of improvement. So I set aside Lost Causes, thinking I could come back to it at the end of the month if I wanted to, and instead picked up a short story I had been needing to finish.
My short story The Soldier and Kerri is absolutely not about vampires. It was also not about Grover Cleveland Academy, so it was still a good respite from my original series. I finished writing it in less than a week and still had plenty of creative juice left to spend—so I dove directly into my next short story, Starcrossed. After I finished Starcrossed, I was able to go back to Lost Causes, my vampire novel. I also, during the last week of JuNoWriMo, brought myself to pull out the rough draft of my third Grover Cleveland novel and start tinkering with it. After going through three other plots and character developments, I felt I had put enough distance between myself and the second Grover Cleveland book. Then when July began, I was able to start editing it in earnest instead of having to waste some of July familiarizing myself with the plot.
So while I didn’t write 50,000 words or finish one novel last June, JuNoWriMo 2013 gave me a chance to ride the creative wave along with a lot of other writers to accomplish a diverse bit of writing: I explored a new genre, wrote two short stories, and got ready to dive in to another book of editing. I’d say I did pretty okay.
Remember, there are few rules in JuNoWriMo, and one of them isn’t that you have to work on the same thing the entire time. If you’re halfway through June this year and realize that the manuscript you’ve chosen to write isn’t “the right fit,” don’t be afraid to pick up something else. But whatever you do, write something!
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Jessie Sanders is a published author and freelance editor. Find her list of published works here. Learn more about her editing services here.
It’s Your Turn
JuNoWriMo 2014 is going to be bigger and better than ever, so don’t miss this opportunity to write that book. I dare you to write 50,000 words in June. If you accept my challenge, know that you won’t be in it alone. You’ll be writing alongside hundreds of other authors who are going for the exact same thing, and that’s the best way to write. It’s gonna be stinkin’ awesome.
Oh, and one more thing. JuNoWriMo is having a giveaway right now: sign up and you just might win a prize!
So, are you in?
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