Diary of a Novella Part 2

join me as I write a novella during January and share my process

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

Welcome to the Writes4Women Substack space for 2025!

I hope you’re enjoying the holiday season and are feeling motivated for the year ahead.

I’ve had a much needed break over the last few weeks and am definitely feeling better for it. I do think we need to re-set from time to time and the Christmas-New Year break has been perfect timing for me. After completing a novella, my eighth novel and producing 42 episodes of the podcast in 2024, as well as numerous teaching and workshop commitments, I was feeling pretty burnt out. So it’s been great to spend time with my family and friends, read, relax, and enjoy chilling on our property alongside our horses, dogs and mini-cows.

Now it’s time to get back to the writing, as I have a deadline with HQ Harper Collins for this year’s Christmas novella. If you’ve been following the podcast for the last few years you’ll know that up until 2023 I was a novella virgin so learning to write shorter, with less backstory and fewer character layers was a challenge. But I have to say it’s one I’ve found quite liberating. Reaching the target of 33,000 words isn’t too onerous and it’s given me the opportunity to try a couple of new things, like writing in first person and writing a light contemporary romance (The Christmas Contract is part of the 2024 anthology you can buy here).

But with every new project (regardless of how many novels you’ve written) there’s the usual snarky voice saying things like: You can’t write a novella!; You don’t even have an idea!; Who’s going to read this rubbish … and a zillion other sabotaging criticisms. Finally, I’ve realised this is part of my process (which I’ve discussed in full in the webinar I posted back in December available in the archives for paid subscribers) so I’m just letting that voice rabbit on while I do my best to ignore it and get writing.

Over January my goal is to write 1000 words a day on the novella and I’ll be reporting in 2-3 times a week in these Diary of a Novella posts

In this episode, I share my character development process using the 'One Stop for Writers' website (find it here) and explain my decision to focus on psychologist Hannah Rasmussen as my protagonist. I also discuss my strategies for overcoming the initial writing anxiety, brainstorming plot ideas, and setting a daily writing goal of 1,000 words.

Join me as I navigate the early stages of crafting a compelling story, reflecting on themes and character motivations.

00:00 New Year Greetings and Personal Update

00:29 Introducing the Novella Project

01:14 Character Development: Hannah Rasmussen

03:48 Plotting and Brainstorming

04:43 Writing Goals and Techniques

05:51 Character Traits and Background

11:05 Overcoming Writing Nerves

12:37 Final Thoughts and Upcoming Plans

To access the video you can sign up to join the Writes4Women Substack Family as a paid subscriber.