Hi there. I'm Gayleen Froese, a paranormal mystery author from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. My first novel, Touch, is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Chapters/Indigo as well as book stores across Canada. My second novel, Grayling Cross, is coming out this fall. Both novels are published by NeWest Press.

Working on the first draft of a novel is usually a long and demanding experience. In the fall of 2008, I found a way of going about it that was, instead, short and ridiculous. This is the story of what happened when Canada's Book Television channel invited me to be a competitor in the 3-Day Novel reality series.

During the Labour Day weekend of 2007, I spent seventy-two hours sleeping (not enough), eating (too much), and writing (frantically) in an Edmonton big box bookstore. I did this because I was locked inside, along with eleven other contestants, for Book Television’s 3-Day Novel Contest. This reality program, in its second season at that time, is based on the International 3-Day Novel Contest.

In the regular contest, writers around the world attempt to write novels in one long weekend. In Book Television’s version, writers from across Canada try to write novels while they are trapped in a bookstore, subjected to writing challenges, and filmed twenty-four hours a day.

No writer could adequately describe how it feels to share a bedroom with strangers of various ages and both genders... to have everything you write projected on a giant screen for customers to read... or to run across Chapters in your pajamas, trying to get to the bathroom before the cameras spot you. I can say that, when you’re tired enough, you forget your situation is strange.

Each morning, I would roll out of my bunk and tear for the bathroom. I’d dress, brush my teeth, and slap on make-up while reminding myself that cameras were outside the door. One morning, the camera people weren’t outside. They’d decided they needed shots of writers spitting in sinks, and had followed us inside. Along with two other writers, I found myself in a surreal conversation about whether camera people were allowed in the washrooms. We decided that they probably were, but that we thought—and dearly hoped—they weren't allowed in the stalls.

Then I’d grab food and caffeine and head to a computer in the middle of the store, where I would sit alongside the other writers and work on my novel.

We were expected to produce somewhere between twenty and thirty thousand words—so, more a novella than a novel. Knowing that novellas are a tough sell for publication, I created an outline that would allow me to write a complete story of novella length, but smoothly expand it to eighty thousand words after the contest.

Of course, even thirty thousand words is a daunting goal when you're being questioned by customers, pulled aside by camera people, signed up for your showers, and—worst of all—being forced to do "challenges."

Three times a day, we had to compete to win prizes, such as a night in a hotel room, and avoid penalties, such as cleaning the bathrooms (competitor Jennifer Isaac, who has unstoppable style, did this in a cocktail dress and heels.) Winners were happy to receive prizes, but less happy to be interviewed about it. The ideal outcome was not to lose or to win, because then you could get right back to writing. We strove for mediocrity.

I would write until 3:30am, crawl to bed, set my alarm for 7am, and do it again the next day. Somehow, this quickly began to seem routine.

In the midst of these insane three days, there were two surprising results:

1.         I finished my novel. All twelve of us did.

2.         The twelve of us, under stress, forced to compete and testy from exhaustion, became good friends. One reason we all finished our novels is that we helped each other to do so with encouragement, suggestions, and the occasional kick in the posterior.

I should say that I was also surprised by how pleased I was with my novella when it was finished. There were some typos and the pacing wasn't perfect, but it was a pretty clean manuscript and a decent little story, overall.

The final surprising result came during the last episode, which was shot months after the contest had finished and the books had been turned in. This time gap was necessary so the judges could read and evaluate our books. Or, as the other writers and I liked to say, "It takes time to read a novel..."

I was amazed to learn that I had been chosen as the winner. I won exposure for my work through the Writers' Guild of Alberta, ten days at the Banff Centre for the Arts and $5000. It was a nice prize package and I appreciated it greatly, but I'd already received prizes that were far better. For one thing, I had thirty thousand words of a novel and a plan to expand it—I've now done so, and have started to shop it. I love the expanded version, and I'm not sure I would ever have written any of if I hadn't been part of the contest.

The other prize—absolutely the best prize of all—is the friendship of the authors, judges,  and production team. We went through something unique together and that kind of experience can make for special friendships. On top of that, they're a terrific group of people. This contest is long over now, but we're still writing and cheering each other on.

The main difference is that most of us don't wear our pyjamas in public anymore.