NaNoWriMo Post-Mortum
So as you may have noticed from my NaNoWriMo page, I didn't make it this year. The current word count is accurate. Just couldn't do it this time.
Oh, well. To tell you the truth, I'm honestly just happy that this thing got me writing again. You know, part of the reason I spent so much of this past month rewriting and working off of old drafts and what I'd done before is that I felt insecure about my ability to simply start writing again. After all, it'd been so long since I'd last tried telling a story in prose - at least, let's see, probably two years, at least - that I'd felt like whatever skills I might have had had sort of atrophied, if not died altogether.
So looking back on this past month, what have I learned? In retrospect, I think that trying to figure out my story as I went along the way that I did was pretty much a bad idea for me. Like it or not, I guess I really am the sort of person who needs to know exactly how I'm going to get from point A to point B before I set out. Otherwise, I just lock up until I do get it figured out, and that takes time. (I really am sort of ill-accustomed to improvising, aren't I? - which is frustrating, because that really would make things a lot easier.) In addition, it's also frustrating how much energy it takes me to fight off my internal critic/perfectionist. I swear, never did so much obsession go into getting so little done...
(Also, needless to say, Kongregate is a very bad idea if you're the sort of person who wants to get anything done, ever.)
As for the Oberlin Chronicles, I at least feel like I have just a little bit more of a grasp on what the big story is than I did before this month. The scrapbook of my old notes and references I put together may prove to be very useful in the long run. I also started adapting Avram's story (which was originally a screenplay I wrote for a class in my junior year of high school) and even got about two thousand words into Matthew's story (I'll post what I have of it up here when I get the chance; ended up trying to imitate the tone and style of a Lloyd Alexander story, which was a lot of fun.)
Anyway, I can't say that I'm not a bit disappointed in myself. Still, at least I tried. Gave it a shot, if not my best shot, for whatever it counts.
And who knows? Maybe I'm not done yet…
Oh, well. To tell you the truth, I'm honestly just happy that this thing got me writing again. You know, part of the reason I spent so much of this past month rewriting and working off of old drafts and what I'd done before is that I felt insecure about my ability to simply start writing again. After all, it'd been so long since I'd last tried telling a story in prose - at least, let's see, probably two years, at least - that I'd felt like whatever skills I might have had had sort of atrophied, if not died altogether.
So looking back on this past month, what have I learned? In retrospect, I think that trying to figure out my story as I went along the way that I did was pretty much a bad idea for me. Like it or not, I guess I really am the sort of person who needs to know exactly how I'm going to get from point A to point B before I set out. Otherwise, I just lock up until I do get it figured out, and that takes time. (I really am sort of ill-accustomed to improvising, aren't I? - which is frustrating, because that really would make things a lot easier.) In addition, it's also frustrating how much energy it takes me to fight off my internal critic/perfectionist. I swear, never did so much obsession go into getting so little done...
(Also, needless to say, Kongregate is a very bad idea if you're the sort of person who wants to get anything done, ever.)
As for the Oberlin Chronicles, I at least feel like I have just a little bit more of a grasp on what the big story is than I did before this month. The scrapbook of my old notes and references I put together may prove to be very useful in the long run. I also started adapting Avram's story (which was originally a screenplay I wrote for a class in my junior year of high school) and even got about two thousand words into Matthew's story (I'll post what I have of it up here when I get the chance; ended up trying to imitate the tone and style of a Lloyd Alexander story, which was a lot of fun.)
Anyway, I can't say that I'm not a bit disappointed in myself. Still, at least I tried. Gave it a shot, if not my best shot, for whatever it counts.
And who knows? Maybe I'm not done yet…