Find Your Writing Process

You need to have a writing process to get down and write your novel, so how do you start? NaNoWriMo guest writer Esther Wildman has some tips on helping you find your writing process.

“Write every day. Write your draft in three months or less. You need an outline to write a novel. Don’t outline, just write.” 

Somewhere along your journey as a writer, you’ve probably heard or seen lots of pieces of advice like these and more. Before I started to write my first novel, I felt overwhelmed by all of the writing advice I was seeing, much of it conflicting with each other. I thought I wouldn’t be able to tell my story if I didn’t follow a specific formula. But the truth is, there is no one right way to write a novel. There are so many ways one can write because writing is so individual. Whether you prefer to write everyday, only during NaNoWriMo, or anywhere in between,  you get words onto the page. Two drafts or six drafts, detailed outline or no outline, different processes work for different people and different stories.