2015 NaNoWriMo - comments and thoughts about it
This is the first NaNoWriMo I took part of, and I believe I have one thing or two to say about the event.
First of all, I did not win it (to win NaNoWriMo, you have to write 50 thousand words within the month of November, then validate your story). It's a shame, because I honestly don't think of this challenge as being particularly difficult. It averages about 1667 words per day, which is relatively doable (at least when I was on vacation. During regular work days, I can do it, but I'll start reducing my sleeping hours - or giving up doing something else).
There is a reason why I didn't make it the the final goal, though. I had originally planned a different story, and even outlined the whole thing (well, a good part of it. Later I realized my outline was awful and didn't really help). The thing is, I surpassed the daily goal in the first day and barely reached the goal on the second day because I simply did not connect with the characters I created. The story was relatively new for me, so I haven't really thought about the characters and the plot, and everything was very dull and boring. In the third day, I found myself struggling to make it to the daily goal. In the fourth day, I simply gave up the story. It just wasn't resonating with what I really wanted to write.
That wasn't the story I wanted to tell.
In the fifth day, I started thinking of all the wrong aspects of the writing process. Not the story itself: the writing process. I learned that the way you write is as important of having the outline, the list of characters and events, the universe or whatever else you need to write.
You need to make the writing experience enjoyable and fun. And in the way I was doing, I was just not having fun. Writing became an obligation rather than a hobby, and when things came to this, I started thinking that I must be doing something wrong.
So I reformulated the whole thing, and sometimes giving up something is more difficult than carrying on with something you know it's not the right thing for you.
I was originally typing the first draft of my story on yWriter (since Scribener is a bit expensive for me at the moment - but when I do start publishing my works, I plan on getting Scribener), and that wasn't working for me. Sometimes even the simplest things, such as the way you write may become a hindrance. I stopped writing and decided that I was going to do it in the old-school way (and in the way I wrote my first over-100-page story): with pen and paper.
The second step was to shelve the story I was writing. I kinda liked the idea, I thought the characters could eventually become characters I would love, but this story is still not ready to be told. It needs some time maturing. It still needs some strength on its own.
On the other hand, way before I got into vacation, I had this love story in my mind that has been haunting me for a while, about a prince who falls in love with a peasant lad. I had the whole story in my head already and the only reason I didn't start writing right away was the fact that I was (and still am) editing my first story. However, editing IS HARD. The second draft is, for me, much harder than the first one. The first draft is easy, you just pour your ideas into words with no restrictions. It's the easy part. The FUN part. I plan on writing about this later.
Anyway, I had that story in my mind, I had it all outlined from the beginning until the end, I had all characters, all their profiles and I knew exactly how I wanted to write that story. And what did I do? That's right: I started working on that story. This may have been my best decision for the NaNoWriMo event. That was the story that made me fall in love with my own characters, and I managed to get quite far with it (the manuscript currently has 114 pages and counting!) In the end, I guess that was the real purpose of NaNoWriMo: not reaching a certain word count, but getting your story on track.
I still plan on writing other posts regarding the writing process of my stories overall, but I also feel that it's still too early to say anything about it, since I haven't published any books yet. At least for now, I don't plan on living off my writing (though it would be nice to do it), but it is a hobby in which I'm quite invested.
First of all, I did not win it (to win NaNoWriMo, you have to write 50 thousand words within the month of November, then validate your story). It's a shame, because I honestly don't think of this challenge as being particularly difficult. It averages about 1667 words per day, which is relatively doable (at least when I was on vacation. During regular work days, I can do it, but I'll start reducing my sleeping hours - or giving up doing something else).
There is a reason why I didn't make it the the final goal, though. I had originally planned a different story, and even outlined the whole thing (well, a good part of it. Later I realized my outline was awful and didn't really help). The thing is, I surpassed the daily goal in the first day and barely reached the goal on the second day because I simply did not connect with the characters I created. The story was relatively new for me, so I haven't really thought about the characters and the plot, and everything was very dull and boring. In the third day, I found myself struggling to make it to the daily goal. In the fourth day, I simply gave up the story. It just wasn't resonating with what I really wanted to write.
That wasn't the story I wanted to tell.
In the fifth day, I started thinking of all the wrong aspects of the writing process. Not the story itself: the writing process. I learned that the way you write is as important of having the outline, the list of characters and events, the universe or whatever else you need to write.
You need to make the writing experience enjoyable and fun. And in the way I was doing, I was just not having fun. Writing became an obligation rather than a hobby, and when things came to this, I started thinking that I must be doing something wrong.
So I reformulated the whole thing, and sometimes giving up something is more difficult than carrying on with something you know it's not the right thing for you.
I was originally typing the first draft of my story on yWriter (since Scribener is a bit expensive for me at the moment - but when I do start publishing my works, I plan on getting Scribener), and that wasn't working for me. Sometimes even the simplest things, such as the way you write may become a hindrance. I stopped writing and decided that I was going to do it in the old-school way (and in the way I wrote my first over-100-page story): with pen and paper.
The second step was to shelve the story I was writing. I kinda liked the idea, I thought the characters could eventually become characters I would love, but this story is still not ready to be told. It needs some time maturing. It still needs some strength on its own.
On the other hand, way before I got into vacation, I had this love story in my mind that has been haunting me for a while, about a prince who falls in love with a peasant lad. I had the whole story in my head already and the only reason I didn't start writing right away was the fact that I was (and still am) editing my first story. However, editing IS HARD. The second draft is, for me, much harder than the first one. The first draft is easy, you just pour your ideas into words with no restrictions. It's the easy part. The FUN part. I plan on writing about this later.
Anyway, I had that story in my mind, I had it all outlined from the beginning until the end, I had all characters, all their profiles and I knew exactly how I wanted to write that story. And what did I do? That's right: I started working on that story. This may have been my best decision for the NaNoWriMo event. That was the story that made me fall in love with my own characters, and I managed to get quite far with it (the manuscript currently has 114 pages and counting!) In the end, I guess that was the real purpose of NaNoWriMo: not reaching a certain word count, but getting your story on track.
I still plan on writing other posts regarding the writing process of my stories overall, but I also feel that it's still too early to say anything about it, since I haven't published any books yet. At least for now, I don't plan on living off my writing (though it would be nice to do it), but it is a hobby in which I'm quite invested.