A whole month has passed since NaNoWriMo began! The excitement was a brewin' and I shared NaNoWriMo in 8 Sentences.
How about eight more (with lots of run-on sentences to squeeze it all in)?
The picture above says, "Participant" and not NaNoWriMo Winner for a reason: while NaNoWriMo continued to be an incredible experience, I did not reach 50,000 words - not even close - and surprisingly, I'm okay with that.
I have an unhealthy relationship with the backspace key, hitting it nearly as often as I tap the letter keys to craft words together - that does serious damage to NaNo word counts!
Word counts quite obviously die when you don't write words...at least when you don't write words for your NaNo project (I missed Maggie, Cassie, Adrianna, and Lauren too much to leave them alone for so long).
I learned what inhibits me creatively, which I think is probably the most invaluable lesson I will take from this experience.
I learned that even if I don't go the outline in advance route, I need to have my story idea more established in my head before taking on my next NaNo (yes, I hope to write along again, sometime) - this year, I was beyond what wrimos call a "Pantser"!
And as a Pantser (someone who starts NaNoWriMo without any outlines or characters sketches or pre-writing work done and flies by the seat of their pants), thank goodness for the writing software, Scrivener - I'm using the free trial right now, but participants get a discount to purchase it - to help me get my proverbial ducks in a row and be able to easily skip around when writing and still keep my story organized.
I learned that yes, I can write while the kids are in the same room with me; we turn on my writing music, they do their homework and their reading and I click clack across my keyboard and we're all happy.
I have a brand new main character, supported by more than a dozen other characters, quite well established now; which means, I'm not done with this story and plan to stick with it in the coming months; it's like my own Christmas present to myself, from myself, nanowrimo.org, peeps at Write on Edge, Cameron Garriepy for organizing us, my tweeps on twitter, and a rip roarin', rockin' awesome NaNoWriMo community across the interwebs - Thank You!
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The fact that you participated in Nanowrimo is huge! Better to have a smaller piece of a well-crafted story than more words of a iffy story. I think. Anyway, congrats on your accomplishment!
ReplyDeleteHey, you have a character and a story that you want to write. That was worth signing up!
ReplyDeleteI see what you are reading...enjoy. I heard an interview where SK was talking about it. Such a down-to-earth person in spite of all he has accomplished. He told the story of throwing Carrie in the garbage - only to be salvaged by his wife.
Enjoy your story.
Well done for getting that far, signing up must have been the hardest step. :)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on doing NaNoWriMo! That's definitely one of those things where you get props for doing it whether you hit the 50k or not.
ReplyDeleteI also adore the Scrivener program, and plan on buying it. I can too easily get caught up in organizing and figuring things out, and then never write, so the program is a godsend!
Congrats on participating and especially for daring to pants it! I dared to pants it too, but like you, I did not reach 50K. However, I got a short story (maybe a novella) out of it, and I would have never come up with that idea if I hadn't done so much free writing and just allowed myself to experiment.
ReplyDeleteI'm SO proud of you, my talented friend. It's so special to hear of your journey, and perpetually LOVELY attitude about it ALL! Such a blessing! Keep at it, friend! You're on to something VERY special!
ReplyDeleteYa just gotta keep on going. I wanted to do this and made a ton of excuses not too...so at least you started! My friend finished last year! You have an amazing talent and I love reading your stories.
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