Looking for something to do with your NaNoWriMo novel? What about that novel you wrote years ago that’s just been taking up space in a drawer?

The Amazon 2012 Breakthrough Novel Award Contest (good grief, what a redundant name) is now open for entries! This contest is free to enter and open to adult and YA, unpublished and self-published novels. The deadline to enter is midnight on February 5th, though they only take the first 5,000 entrants in each category so you’ll want to get your entry in as soon as possible to make sure that you don’t miss out. The prize is not only a large cash advance but a publishing deal with Penguin so it’s a great opportunity to get your book in front of a variety of editors and publishers.

If you decide to enter, let us know below so we can keep our fingers crossed for you!

Image via Wikipedia

I promised everyone in my NaNoWriMo area that I’d take requests if there was a topic they wanted a blog post about. So, one intrepid Wrimo asked:

Adjusting to life after NaNo is HARD. I’ll have to remember this icky feeling I’ve had all December for next year…the whole “not writing because I’m trying to get holiday stuff done and I deserve to relax, but it’s all making me feel miserable and unproductive” lethargy and just keep writing come December.

So here we are. Because we’ve all been there. NaNoWriMo can be stressful and annoying while your in it but once it’s over… you kind of miss it no matter how badly you need a break. And then you crash land in the middle of the holiday season so you simply trade one kind of stress for another. It’s a relief to not be writing while you’re running around buying presents, decorating and doing the usual holiday stuff but, at the same time, not having the time to write at all gives you this feeling of failure after spending 30 days living and dying by the word count. And if you don’t write a single word all December, you do feel like a word-less failure when the dust settles in January.

The simplest cure for a NaNoWriMo hangover is hair of the dog. Whenever you can eek out time, do some writing. Ideally you want to keep working on your NaNo novel in progress but, really, any writing will do to keep your creatives juices lubricated. Blog posts, diary entries, stream of consciousness journals from the perspective of one of your characters… write anything at all, especially if you can do a little bit each day. A little bit is always better than nothing.

While stolen moments of writing may be all you can afford during a busy time like the holiday season once you settle back into “ordinary time” you should set yourself a writing goal. Do you want to set a date deadline to finish the novel by or just an overall word count goal per day, week or month? That’s up to you and your writing goals. But having a NaNoWriMo like goal to keep you productive and focused will help to chase away the NaNo blues. You may not accomplish as much in the ordinary time as you did during National Novel Writing Month but forming consistent writing habits is the best thing that you can do for yourself as a writer.

But that’s just my advice. I’m hoping other writers and NaNoWriMo veterans will weigh in with their advice to combat Post NaNoWriMo Letdown Syndrome.

You’ve just finished a novel. Maybe you wrote it as part of November’s National Novel Writing Month. Either way, you’ve got this first draft happily sitting there and you’re wondering… what happens next?

First, you let it sit. Then you go over it with the proverbial fine tooth comb, cleaning and fine-tuning it. Then you give it to your critique groups  and beta readers and get some outside perspectives. Then you repeat those last two steps again and again until you’re absolutely positive that the book you have is as good as it can possibly be.

Now comes the part that’s really just between you and your book. For some people, this can be the hardest part of the entire process. You need to step back entirely from your book and take an objective look at it to decide its future.

Why did you write this book in the first place? Was it just for fun or for the experience? Did you write it with the aim of getting an agent and a publisher down the road?

You’ve been up close and personal with the book for a while now and you’ve gotten heaps of outside perspectives in it. It’s time to ask yourself whether your original plan is what you still want.

After all this work, have you decided that your book is good enough to try to publish after all? Or have you realized that this isn’t the book to launch your career and that you’d be better off turning your focus to the next one? Has the feedback from your readers made you realize you’ve got something with a limited niche audience that wouldn’t be suited for a big publisher but might be ideal for self-publishing?

Once you ask yourself these questions, you’ll need to help yourself find the answers through research. This means researching agents, publishers and the whole query process. This process is slow and maddening but the rewards can be great.

Self-publishers have just as much work to do if not more. Sure, you can just slap your book up and have it for sale in under a week but that doesn’t mean that’s the way that you should do it. Successful self-publishing experiences come from careful planning and from treating the process of publishing your book with as much care as launching a new business.

I can’t tell you whether traditional publishing or self-publishing is for you. I had a successful self-published book that was picked up in a traditional deal. I’m also only looking into traditional outlets for my latest novel at this time. Do with this info what you will.

But no matter which option you choose, you’ll have to conquer a certainly amount of fear. The fear of rejection, fear of failure, and sometimes even the fear of success can all hold our finger back from submitting our books anywhere. My hope is that after you’ve put all this work into working on your book you’ll have enough faith in it and yourself to make it happen.

You’ve just finished a novel. Maybe you wrote it as part of November’s National Novel Writing Month. Either way, you’ve got this first draft happily sitting there and you’re wondering… what happens next?

First, let it sit. Then sit down and do some serious revision and editing until your book is as good as you can make it on your own. Then it’s time to put your baby where it belongs: in the hands of readers! I’m not talking about publishing… that’s a discussion for the next post. I’m talking about giving your book to readers to get feedback on what you should do with it going forward.

Sending your book out in the wild to be read by people that aren’t you can be very nerve wrackin! But getting commentary from real, live readers can be invaluable and your book desperately needs those outside perspectives. The comments from your readers about what they liked and didn’t like, which parts were slow or boring and even where they laughed will all help as you do your final edits.

Warning: Some people will have less than complimentary things to say about your baby. I know it doesn’t fell like it but, trust me, that’s good. Finding out what doesn’t work in your book is the first step towards making it work. A reader that just kisses your butt and tells you it’s wonderful isn’t as useful as someone who helps you figure out what’s wrong.

If you’re already part of a critique group then now’s the perfect time to give them your novel for an in-depth read. If you don’t have an already established group of beta readers, here’s some tips on how to create one.

• Think of the writers that you’ve done critique work for in the past. They’d probably be happy to return the favor.
• Put out a request for readers on message boards, Twitter, Facebook or whatever social network you spend the most time on. There are also several critique sites where you can trade manuscripts with others in a more structured setting.
• Ask writer friends that you specifically think are a good fit for your novel based on the kinds of things they write if they’d be willing to give it a read. Just keep in mind that most published authors are very, very busy and don’t have time to read the work of others. But it never hurts to ask as long as you are a close friend, ask nicely and go in expecting a no.
• Ask your family and friends. This group will probably be the most willing but will also be the least helpful commentary. Nothing against your family and friends, I’m sure they’re lovely! But your friends and family like you and are already predisposed to like what you do. They aren’t going to give you the hard hitting commentary that your book may need to become the best that it can. But all friends and family are not created equal so do yourself a favor and start with those that are avid readers to start with… they’ll be able to give you the highest quality comments.

In general, you can’t possibly get enough readers to look at your book. The more perspectives and opinions you can get on your story, the better it will be for it.

Once you’ve got your readers, it’s time to play the waiting game once again. While they read away, you’ll be antsy with anticipation but try to work on something else while you wait so you don’t think about it. Then when their comments and feedback start trailing in, you’ll find yourself back to the editing stage while you incorporate their feedback. Extensive rewrites may mean that you’ll need a second batch of readers so you may end up repeating this process down the road.

How do you find your beta readers and critique buddies?

You’ve just finished a novel. Maybe you wrote it as part of November’s National Novel Writing Month. Either way, you’ve got this first draft happily sitting there and you’re wondering… what happens next?

First, let it sit. Then…

Edit and revise

If you’ve never edited a book before and aren’t sure where to start, I’ve got a road map for getting started here.

“…with pen, ink, scissors, paste, a decanter of sherry, and a vast reluctance, Mr Earbrass begins to revise. This means, first, transposing passages, or reversing the order of their paragraphs, or crumpling them up furiously and throwing them in the waste-basket. After that there is rewriting. This is worse than merely writing, because not only does he have to think up new things just the same, but at the same time try not to remember the old ones.” -Edward Gorey

When people ask what editing is, I almost always answer this: Editing is making your book as good as you possibly can on your own. It’s going over every scene again and again, sometimes doing minor tweaks, sometimes overhauling huge sections until you reach the point when it either is exactly how you want it or you know you need outside help. It means completely rewriting some parts. It means cutting large sections, rearranging scenes, even changing the original plot… whatever it takes to turn that first draft into the best story possible.

I’m not going to lie… editing is a lot of work, usually more work than writing the first draft. But, in many ways, editing and revising can be even more fun and rewarding to a writer because that’s the stage when you actually make the book as amazing as you see it in your head. That’s the stage when you make your messy first draft into a sharp and polished draft you’d be proud to show to anyone.

Now, maybe you just wrote your book for fun and don’t have any plans for publication. I still think you need to go back and re-read your work and do some editing even just to clean up the typos. For starters, you may be surprised at the quality of what you wrote and that may change your plans. But even if you decide you still would rather this book never seen the light of day, it’s still helpful to your writing life to revisit what you wrote to see what you produced and to help you understand how to improve.

Once you’ve edited your book into literary gold (which, for the record, ALWAYS takes longer than you think it will) it’s time to take it to the next step…

You’ve just finished a novel. Maybe you wrote it as part of November’s National Novel Writing Month. Either way, you’ve got this first draft happily sitting there and you’re wondering… what happens next?

Before you do anything else…

Let it sit.

No matter what your future plans for your novel, your first step should always be to let it sit for at least a month. You just spend a ton of time throwing words down and you’re too close to both the story and the draft to be able to effectively do anything with it. I highly recommend starting something else during this time be it another novel, a short story or a completely different artistic project such as a painting.

This time away from your novel will give you two big things.

• The first is enough distance from what you wrote to be able to look at it objectively. Being able to look at your writing without too much emotional attachment is what will enable you to effectively edit and revise your story. Words you don’t remember writing are much easier to cut or change then words that still feel like your babies.
• The second thing you’ll gain is the chance to let your subconscious work on your story in the background. While you were writing your book, you were actively shaping your characters and story. You were so focused on each tree that you couldn’t see the whole forest (to use a cliche). Now you’re going to let your subconscious play with those elements while you purposely don’t work on your story. Sometimes this time away from your novel can be exactly what you need to figure out how to best tell your story and, when you finally do go back to it, you’ll discover that you’ve already worked out some of the biggest issues.

You’ve just finished a novel. Maybe you wrote it as part of November’s National Novel Writing Month. Either way, you’ve got this first draft happily sitting there and you’re wondering… what happens next?

Here’s what you don’t do next. You don’t send it out to agents and publishers. Not yet, anyway.

And yet, even as I say this to you, thousands of people send their very first draft out to agents the minute they finish it. Agents have come to dread the beginning of December because they get buried in this mess of unedited work.

Maybe that sounds harsh but it’s advice you’ll see absolutely everywhere. No agent or publisher wants to see your first draft and, by sending out your roughest work, you’re damaging your chances of publishing in the future. You have a ton of work to do before you’re ready to submit your novel to agents and publishers so do yourself (and your writing career as a whole) a massive favor and resist the urge to show off your baby until it’s matured a bit through editing and extensive revision.

It’s hard enough to get published anyway. Why would you want to try with anything other than your very best work? Frankly, it’s both a waste of time (for both you and for the poor agents and editors that have to read your first draft) and can be damaging to your future writing aspirations.

And while we’re on this topic, this doesn’t mean that you should start querying or searching for agents either. You aren’t ready to query agents until you’ve got a 100% complete and heavily polished work for them.

But rather than focus on the negative, stay tuned for lots of posts over the next few weeks on what you *should* do next regardless of your publication plans.

• Do you miss the NaNoWriMo insanity?
• Do you find yourself bummed out that you don’t have a 50,000 word deadline hanging over your head?
• When your gym teacher asks you to sprint, do you burst into tears? 
• Have you woken in the dead of night, the name “Chris Baty” on your lips?

You may be one of the million of National Novel Writing Month participants living with Post NaNoWriMo Letdown Syndrome.

Don’t suffer alone!

Commiserate below!

(If you want to use my ribbon graphic on your own website, that’s cool just do me a solid and link back here, k? Thanks!)

If you passed the 50,000 word finish line and became an official NaNoWriMo winner yesterday, you were riding high. It was so much fun to watch people all over the world celebrating their victories on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook with animated GIFs, four letter words and lots and lots of exclamation points. (And, in one memorable instance, party salad!) It was a glorious celebration of the triumph of determination over procrastination and caffeine over pesky sleep.

Or, at least, it was if you were looking at it from the winner’s circle. If you were watching it unfold with a word count that fell somewhat sort of 50,000… it probably made you feel kind of crummy.

You know how I know this? I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo since 2002 and, from 2002 until 2007, I lost every single year. Yup. I, your fearless cheerleader, am a 5 time NaNoWriMo loser. I believe at least two of those years I wrote less than 10,000 words. I know.

I tell you this because I don’t want you to feel like not hitting 50,000 words this month makes you a failure. I know how easy it is to completely beat yourself up when you promise yourself that you’re going to do something and then you fall short. I think this feeling is just as bad if you came in at 49,999 or if you meant to participate but never ended up writing a single word.

You should still be extremely proud of yourself even if you didn’t hit 50,000 words this year. The first step to accomplishing anything is making the commitment and just by signing up, you crossed that hurdle. You took that very important first step to realizing your dream and you cannot underestimate the importance of that.

Secondly, you learned something very important about yourself this month. You know when you worked your absolute hardest to achieve this and when you slacked a little and maybe could have done a little more. You know what kinds of curve balls life can throw you that strike you out and which ones you can reach and hit out of the park anyway. You learned just how hard it really is to write 50,000 words in a month and now you know what kind of commitment that will require of you if you want to do it again in the future. Those are all very important lessons that you need to teach yourself if you want to achieve your goals.

Look at the words you did write. Even if they were less then you set out to write, each one still represents an accomplishment, a step towards achieving a very difficult goal and something to be proud of. Everyone says they want to write a book someday. Do you know how few actually ever even start one? Maybe you didn’t finish but you did start and that’s much farther than many people ever get.

So go to your area’s TGIO (Thank God It’s Over) Party with your head held high and don’t let this year’s loss scare you away from signing up next year. You know what changed for me in 2007, the year I finally won for the first time? Something just finally clicked and I understood just how hard I needed to work to reach that goal. And once I understood that, it didn’t matter how many losses I had under my belt, I was determined to never finish the month with less than 50,000 again.

You know the expression that tells you to shoot for the moon because even if you miss you’ll end up in the stars? Maybe you didn’t make it to the moon this year but you’re still up here in the stars. Maybe you’ll get to the moon next year, maybe not. For now, take a moment and enjoy the view.

To verify as a NaNoWriMo winner, you need to copy and paste your entire novel into the box that looks like the screenshot on the right.

But you may be in trouble here if…

• You wrote your novel by hand.
• Your NaNoWriMo novel is spread out over multiple document files.
• You’re paranoid about someone stealing your novel and only want to upload it scrambled. (Even though no one actually looks at what you paste in here.)

Rather than having to go through all the work of scrambling your novel, typing it in or combining all those files into one, I have a simpler solution.

I’ve set up 50,001 words of Lorem Ipsum which is a dummy text that printers use. You can copy this text and then past it into the verification box. This will verify you as a winner and, once you’ve done that, you can just go back to manually updating your word count and your bar will stay purple. Obviously, this isn’t for people who didn’t write 50,000 words to pretend they won NaNoWriMo (Who would cheat on a self-challenge like this? What would be the point?) rather for those that legitimately wrote over 50,000 words but don’t have them handy for easy copy and paste verification.

You can copy (or download if you want to save it for later for some reason) the 50,000 words here: 50,000 Words of Lorem Ipsum

Don’t know how to copy and paste? This video should help.