You Conquered the Challenge. Now What? Right now there are dozens of writers with 50,000(+/-) - novels anxious to see their books in print (online, etc.). But I urge you not to immediately send out your manuscripts. I stand as a hypocrite every time I give advice, because I feel free advice is simply free advice, but if I had to make an educated guess, I would say wait until after January to continue any further with your publishing dreams. The first year I participated in National Novel Writing Month, I discovered dozens of other writers far too eager to turn their manuscript into a book. I'll be honest, I've gone to Barnes & Noble and imagined where my novels would wind up. It's a fun game, but don't let it wear your patience. So many of the novels are in their first draft form. Not many people write a perfect first draft. As a matter of fact, most writers never write a perfect novel. While some may say, "Don't overdo it; you can't write a perfect novel," I would suggest writing several drafts of your novel. This is tip one. Write it at least three more times. In fact, the book I wrote this time last year is the book I edited for this competition after writing three more drafts. Tip two: Even if you have the best novel ever written by a human being, wait. November brings dozens of incomplete manuscripts to editors. You might be buried with the hacks of writing, and you don't want that. And my final point: It's not just whipping out a novel and "selling" it. You need to know your selling point. To do business as an artist, you must understand you are creating a "product" which must have a "selling point". And you have to whisper all the sweet nothings to editors and agents that they want to hear. Take this advice from Jane Friedman on this stage. In case you're interested, I finished NaNoWriMo with 60,000+ words edited and 11,000 more to go. So I failed my own personal goal, but completed the competition.
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