NaNoWriMo 2015 Wrap-Up
I ended up the month with a little over 52K, which is about my average with NaNo. I took every damn one of those 30 days to do it, though, which is weird for me. Usually I either finish by the second or third week, or I flame out in the first. It really was like pulling teeth to make my word count every day, and a lot of times I didn't, so I had to make up for it later on down the road.
I always do original fic for NaNo, but this time I took the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2013 and decided to use this year's NaNo to completely rewrite it, top to bottom. I thought I'd get a story that was pretty similar to 2013's story, but within about 2 pages I realized this was not going to be the case. I think I kept maybe 30% of the original content? I have new scenes, new subplots, killed some different characters (whoops), un-killed some other ones (yay!), and have a slightly different genre overall.
This is the fourth draft in total for this particular story, which is unheard of for me. I think when I start writing an original story I have about a fifty-fifty chance of actually finishing it because I just stop caring. I love writing and I write (basically) every day, but I'm so bad about seeing things through to the end (it's a wonder I get any fanfic posted at all, tbh). And going back and editing a finished (original) story? Ha! I despise editing, I don't have the patience for it, and it's not often that I write something original that I want to edit. Like, actually seriously edit. There have been a couple of original stories before that I've gone back and lightly revised, but not to the point where I created entire new drafts and had people to plot with and who beta it (thanks, canonisrelative and kim_j_8472!!!!) and the whole shebang. Which is what I've done with this one, and holy cow, the difference it makes. Kim and Canon are geniuses, you guys. Complete geniuses. I'm in their debt forever. (I still hate editing, though).
I'm at a little over 60K now and still plugging along, sloooooooooowly. So slowly it hurts. I've always wanted to get something published, though, and this is one story of mine that I could maybe see in print someday? That I would want to see in print someday, at any rate. (Anyone who follows me on Twitter and who occasionally sees me complain about the gay android space pirate story? Yeah, that's this one). I told myself last year that my goal for 25 was to have a draft of this particular story that I was actually satisfied with complete by my next birthday. Well, I'm under a month away from that goal and still have a shitton to do. So really, I should be working on that instead of dicking around on the Internet. Or, you know, writing fanfic. Which is kind of what I've been doing in the few minutes of free time I've been able to snatch this past week. Damn The Martian for, you know, existing.
(I don't know why I wrote all this out, but hey, it was one more thing I could do to put off having to look at this story). I hope everyone who did NaNo had a great month, and that everyone else who has writing projects they're working on is having good luck with those. May the Muse be ever in your favor, and all that jazz.