The month has ended for Romance in a Month, and while I didn’t finish my first romance, Behind the Altar, I’m close. The bones are in place. I will write the final chapters–the resolution–this week, and I’ll have a draft.
This project represents the first time I’ve participated in a month-long writing assignment, and it’s my first attempt at writing a romance. And I’m signed up to do another class for the sequel in September. It was a successful experience for several reasons.
- I wrote something new every day. I’m in the editing stage for Native Lands, my next book in the Florida Fiction Series, so I’m working on old stuff instead of creating fresh. There’s something inspiring to the creative process to be working with a new story.
- I didn’t have to worry about revising or publishing. I just wrote and became involved in the story of my main characters, Dean and Leah.
- The plot for a romance is generally simpler than what I’m doing with my other novels, and that’s a good thing. I’ve always fought the “formula” novel, but now that I’ve written one, I find it freeing in its structure. I only have to worry about writing the story to fit.
- Participating in a class meant I had cheerleaders at the end of every writing day. We all posted our updates–a sentence or two–about our progress and received lots of “Good job” comments. Now we’re all pairing off to be beta readers for one another, and that’s nice as well.
I’m glad I participated, and I’m ready to do it again. Of course, I’ve yet to print out the first draft of Behind the Altar. Maybe I won’t be as enthusiastic when I go back and read what I’ve written! I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, the sequel Behind the Bar will be fermenting in my head. Stay tuned!
P.C. ZICK 
9 responses to “#Romance in A Month – I Did It”
Congratulations, Patricia. It’s fascinating what a deadline and the right encouragement can do. I wrote my first version of Go Away Home during NANOWRIMO. 55,000 words in one month. I even kept some of it! Good luck with the revision process.
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Thanks, Carol. I’ve always wanted to participate in NaNoWriMo, but timing was always off. I now see the benefit to it.
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Impressive. I’ve never wanted to try this, but now I’m inspired to try. I’d want to do it with a group like you describe as I think that would be great motivation and the pairing off will be a perfect way to do the rewrite.
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I never thought I would either, Darlene. But I decided I needed to challenge myself to something different. If you’re interested, we’re starting again in September.
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Neat project – it’s good to try different things and stretch the writing out in new directions. Love the cover and congratulations.
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Thank you, Francis. Yes, I needed something to stimulate my creative juices. This did it for all my work.
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I’m a big believer in the NaNo type concept. It definitely works and it’s very freeing. I’m glad you had a good experience, PC and congratulations.
“Behind the Bar” ?! Oooh, steamy!
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I hope so.
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[…] an earlier post, I wrote about the Romance in a Month class I took in May/June. Here’s the update on the book and the course: I finished my first […]
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