Writing a book in 3 days…

As a participant in the 3 Day Novel Writing contest this weekend I managed to write 113 pages in 3 days, while consuming lots of water, 1 Dr. Pepper, about 15 beers, half a pitcher of Sangria, 1 bag of chips, a bagel, an entire medium sized pizza, 4 baby carrots, two bananas, a handful of almonds, one stuffed canneloni, 2 pickles, 4 olives, half a cinnamon bun, a butterhorn, a chicken skewer, and some nachos covered in that yellow fake cheese. Now that I think about it I’m surprised that I had time to write at all because it seems like I was grazing the entire time.

I learned some valuable lessons this weekend:
1. Starting a writing contest at midnight is challenging. Or, at least, scheduling a band practice for the 4 hours leading up to the contest was just not smart on my part. I should have slept instead.
2. Writing a book in 3 days is exhausting, challenging, educational, mind-blowing and exhilarating but it’s rarely, if ever, fun.
3. I can write a book. It might not be really deep, or even interesting, but it’s my first one so I’m not going to be too critical. And there are some good parts, so that is exciting.
4. I used the word ‘really’ 64 times in my book and had to go back through and erase them (I left in a dozen or so). That was really, really, really, really too many really’s.
5. Adverbs are not your friend. I went back and got rid of most of them. I read that if you always have to say he said “shyly” or “angrily” then you’re either assuming your reader isn’t very bright or there’s something missing from your writing.
6. I also use the words ‘possibly’, ‘every’, ‘usually’ and ‘everyone’ way too much.
7. Your brain is a muscle and it gets tired. At one point I felt like I could feel my brain throbbing in my head. It wasn’t a nice feeling.