National Novel Writing Month by Catherine Bruns

JENN McKINLAY: I was recently at Bouchercon (so fun!), hanging with the Red when a familiar face stopped by the table where we were signing. It was the fabulous Catherine Bruns. Of course, I immediately invited her to come visit us and here she is! And that, my friends, is the beauty of conferences. There's always a new friend to be made!

CATHERINE BRUNS: Thank you so much, Jenn, and to the rest of the Jungle Red Writers for having me here today! 

In the writing community, November is synonymous with National Novel Writing Month, or Nano for short. The main objective is to try and complete a novel within thirty days, or at least 50,000 words. 

Learn More: NANO

The first and only time I ever did Nano was back in 2016. I had an idea for a novel that I’d been carrying around in my head for over a year and really wanted to put down on paper. I’d just published my first two cozy mysteries in 2015 with a boutique publisher and though happy with them, I wanted more. I yearned to see my books in bookstores and on library shelves, like many writers do. It was a goal that I’d had since I was eight years old and wrote my first story, a highly plagiaristic version of Cinderella. Fortunately, Disney never sued.

Now all I had to do was write the book, find an agent, and send the manuscript off on query to publishers. Piece of cake, right?

Not exactly.

Since I had already committed to two more books and was also working full-time, it was difficult to find the hours to write the new manuscript. So, I decided to set aside the month of November to complete it. 

Cozy mysteries are very formulaic, and sometimes I tend to push the boundaries a bit, so to speak. I worried that my plot might be too dark for the genre, so I decided I’d try my hand at a suspense novel instead. The main character, Tessa, would be a talented chef and recent widow whose husband had just died in a horrific car accident. But Tessa would soon discover that it wasn’t an accident. She is determined to find the person responsible and decides her talent as a chef will lead her to the guilty party. She goes “undercover” as a cook in a dumpy pizza parlor called Slice where her husband was last seen. Tessa then learns that her husband wasn’t as well liked as she’d originally surmised—in fact, every one of the employees at Slice had a different reason for wanting him dead. When Tessa starts to uncover the secrets her husband was keeping, she winds up in some scalding hot water. 

I made my goal with Nano and finished the book. Writers can track their progress on Nano’s website, locate a writing buddy there, and receive badges. They send emails to inspire your writing and want to help you achieve your goal. This is the one time that word count matters more than the actual content. Because of this, my first draft was complete but nowhere near ready for an agent to look at. 

Available Now!

I spent the next eight months editing and polishing. I asked beta readers for honest feedback. In the fall of 2017, I started to send the manuscript out and was fortunate to find an agent who liked my voice and was willing to help me complete the additional work needed. She suggested that I query the book as a cozy, not suspense, which meant even more changes to the manuscript. We went back and forth with edits for another four months until it was finally ready to query in February 2018. Sourcebooks offered me a contract and Penne Dreadful was released in July 2019.  

Let me just say that Nano isn’t for every writer. Would I do it again? Absolutely. Back in 2016, I made it my goal to get the story down on paper first, and Nano served its purpose. Goals motivate me and help me to stay focused. I’m not the most organized person (far from it, actually) so I need this in my everyday life. 

Readers and writers, what type of goals do you set for yourself?   

USA Today bestselling author Catherine Bruns lives in Upstate New York with her very patient husband, three sons, and several spoiled pets. Catherine has a B.A. in English and is a former newspaper reporter and press release writer.  She currently writes four series: the Italian Chef, Cindy York, Cookies & Chance and Aloha Lagoon Mysteries. Her book, For Sale by Killer, won the 2019 Daphne du Maurier award for Mainstream Mystery/Suspense. Please visit her website at catherinebruns.net.