Thousands of aspiring authors band together around the end of each year to participate in “NaNoWriMo” – which stands for “National Novel Writing Month,” and which takes place in November, as each participant tries to write a full-length novel (minimum of 50,000 words) during the single month of November – but while many aspiring authors find this to be an exhilarating and rewarding experiences, many of them also end up at a loss as to what to do when it ends!

Upon wrapping up your participation in NaNoWriMo, the first thing you need to realize is that a novel written in only thirty days will require quite a bit of editing; you should allow your manuscript to sit for at least one month, enjoying the accomplishment of having finished it and putting it out of your mind as much as you can, and when your break from the manuscript comes to an end, start diving into it with deep and merciless edits!

Once you have completed this step in the process, and you feel that the book has been edited to a point where it could comfortably sit on bookshelves in a major bookstore, enlist a handful of friends whose opinion you trust to read the book; ask them to read the manuscript with an eye for what they would think if they had spent money on it and did not know the author – and sit down with each reader, gathering these honest thoughts and opinions of theirs, and taking everything they say seriously!

Once you have spent time with all of your “beta readers” and have applied the suggestions of theirs that you feel were appropriate, you will be ready to approach agents; take time to understand exactly what this entails and how you should approach agents, making sure to avoid the mistakes other aspiring authors make during this step (and make sure you keep the fact that your manuscript was a NaNoWriMo work to yourself, as this has a negative connotation with most agents!).

And you will be ready to move onto the toughest step of all once you have started to approach agents: sitting back, waiting, and seeing what happens!

Tags: