How I Accidently Wrote a Horror Novel in Two Days
I had let overthinking and anxiety get the best of me at the beginning of National Novel Writing Month a couple of years ago. Every November, a few hundred thousand people tried to write 50,000 words, enough for a short novel. I had reached this goal during the previous 6 years, but 2019 looked like it would be the first year I wouldn’t finish.
On November 2nd, already late, I sat down and wrote 1058 words before giving up. This was not even close to the 1667 minimum needed each day. I don’t remember exactly why I quit, but it had to do with stress over finances and health, plus a lack of excitement about my idea that year. I had plenty of excuses and rationalized that there were more important things to do. I tried not to think about it too much for the rest of the month.
At the end of November, I traveled to visit friends for Thanksgiving, and as a result, my routine was shaken up. On the 28th I went to a holiday dinner and after having interesting discussions with creative people at the party, I was full of optimism and happy energy.
The next morning, I rethought my no-NaNo-this-year stance and whether I could somehow salvage it. There were two days left in November, was it even physically possible to type 50,000 words in less than two days? I reasoned that it would be an interesting experiment, and even if I didn’t finish, I would have the beginnings of a story. Plus, the idea of not interrupting my winning streak was really tempting.
But what to write? My original plan was to write a bunch of unconnected blog posts, but I realized I needed to stick with fiction if I wanted to have a chance at finishing. I had a before-bed visualization I did that had grown into a vague story. To calm my mind, I liked to imagine cozy places when I was trying to fall asleep, maybe a tent in the treetops, suspended tautly, or a tiny berth on a tall ship. I imagined myself protected and off duty, finally ready to relax and sleep. One of these visualizations was set in a theater that was a little oddly built, there was a storage area above the stage, which had a small hidden depression in the floor that could be used to hide in and spy on both the stage and the audience area. The only NaNo I’d done before without some sort of plot planning was a slow, frustrating grind. I thought that coming up with some sort of plot in such a short time would be the hardest part.
Mid-morning, I decided to go for it, so I started a new document and just started writing. The story flowed nicely and surprisingly the day went by easily. The main character ran away from home during the very beginning of the story, and I wrote through the practicalities of her current situation, sleeping in a van in the forest and trying to figure out how she would survive the coming winter. When I got stuck, I would dive into her back story, making it up as I went, telling myself to just move forward and keep writing when I’d second guess something. I realized this draft would be my way of exploring the story, and that I would have to completely rewrite it later. I didn’t make the halfway point by the time I went to bed, but I had 14,450 words more than I did that morning. Good enough. I went to bed, set my alarm, woke up at 7, and started writing again.
My wrists hurt a little about halfway through the second morning and I had a minute or two of panicked doubt I had to push past, but overall getting to 35,000 words was no problem. The story seemed to knit itself together as I wrote. The plot traveled out of the forest into a nearby town. I explored the area through my main character, visiting the local library, finding camping and thrift stores to stock up at, and eventually coming upon the fateful abandoned theater. We found a way in, decided to move in, and got cozy.
Of course, the peace didn’t last long, and the theater started to have covert visitors who held mysterious meetings at night. I didn’t have any idea what was going on at the meetings until I was writing the scene. I had to urge myself forward, and not get stuck questioning or thinking, to just keep writing. There ended up being weird mushrooms, a body in a freezer, and spooky, disembodied screams. Around this time, I realized I was writing a horror novel, something I’d never considered writing before. Happy with the direction the story was taking, I kept writing through the morning and afternoon.
Then it got exponentially harder. At first, it was just a slightly painful hum in my wrists. No big deal. As the hours went by my fingers grew progressively sloppier, the nerves and muscles just wouldn’t respond as quickly. My word count slowed down. Irritating, but still doable. I calculated how many words per hour I would need, and the number climbed higher as the hours passed.
The story got weirder and more non-sequitur. Chunks of time and space were lost as if folded away. The strangeness of the plot seemed directly related to the length of time I’d been writing. It was getting later and I had just over 10,000 words left. I had to pause because my wrists were feeling even more sloppy and my words per minute count was getting lower and lower. It was getting really frustrating and I realized I might have to stop because soon I might not be able to physically type anymore.
Stubbornly I thought through my options and decided to look up dictation software. I’d never used it, but maybe I could install and learn it quickly. I did a little research and found that Windows 10 had voice recognition and dictation software built-in. I found it on my laptop and quickly figured it out. Relieved, I dictated for the next half an hour, barely glancing at the horrible, mangled text appearing on the screen. I tried enunciating more clearly with limited success. Didn’t matter, my word count was rising, I could go in and try to make sense of it all later.
I felt mildly weird talking to myself in an empty office and giggled at the absurdity. After a little more than 3,000 words the software stopped working. I restarted the computer, no problem, I needed a little stretch break anyway. I dictated for a few more minutes and it stopped working again. I had about 7,000 words left, and time was running out. I tried typing again and found the break had given my wrists enough time to recover a little. This was the absolute hardest part of the entire two days. I’d already written through the ending and had no idea where to go with the story. The end, 50,000 words, seemed to get farther and farther away.
I had stopped correcting spelling and typing errors thousands of words earlier, and now I didn’t care if the words made much sense. I just typed, continually having to talk myself out of stopping. I finally got down to the last five thousand words. How could I possibly add 5,000 more words? The story was more than done. Would my wrists be permanently damaged? How had I typed 5,000 words so easily at the beginning? I didn’t really care about much at that point, except how much I wanted to fall asleep. I kept fantasizing about falling into bed and passing out.
Sometimes being stubborn is helpful though. I started to type rambling notes when I thought of them and realized the shorter the word, the faster I’d finish. So, I added in a few extra a’s and I’s here and there. Technically, they were words! Then I just started typing the letters a and I, over and over, deciding this was okay, unlike copying and pasting. It took forever to type 5,000 one-letter words. After ages, I got to 50,000, made myself type a few extra letter-words, and then saved my work.
The next day I felt a contented creative glow. I had done it! It was like a warm muffin at the center of my core. It didn’t seem like a huge deal after the fact, if I had been able to do it, it couldn’t be that hard, could it? Still, I felt proud. My story had morphed into something I had never really thought to write — a weird, twisty horror story. It would need a complete overhaul, but I really liked the bones. I did feel like I needed to qualify my win since the ending was complete nonsense, but it was definitely a success. Because I didn’t overthink it, I was able to continue my Nano winning streak, and I had a brand new first draft to edit.
