two thumbs and 50k of words!
I am massively behind on the December posting meme, but first, a post about NaNo! I did write 50k in a month. It took 29 days, not 30, and it's the first time I've ever won NaNo. (The last time I tried, I got as far as making an account on the website. Um. Not stellar, self.)
I feel good about my decision to write 50k of whatever I wanted, rather than 50k of one project. November is still not the best month for a massive writing project, especially the November I had, with final projects due for my class and then Thanksgiving travel, plus lesson planning and report cards and a ton of paperwork. Oh, and a publishing party, because I am a masochist and decided to have it in November instead of December. Why, self? (So I can take December 23 as a personal day, that's why.) Anyway, I didn't count any of my lesson planning or class discussion posts, but a few work things were so ridiculously long that I ended up counting them as part of NaNo because they took actual creativity. 45k, though? All for the blog, or Secret Mutant, or Yuletide, or various WIPs.
A few discoveries along the way:
Get ahead early and often. You will need days off to deal with work stuff, or life stuff, or just to rest. I was never impossibly far behind because I hit a little over par for most days, but I would have loved to have won NaNo about a week early so I could edit the 50k. Which brings me to...
Not being able to edit is so frustrating! I never got so far ahead that I could take time to edit anything. Writing so much on such a tight deadline lends itself to repetition, narrative shortcuts, and a general mishmash of typos. I produced a lot more words than normal, but they were also significantly less polished. I've actually forgotten how much writing I have to edit because it was just "finish this thing, move on to the next thing."
Your crap writing won't seem so bad if you let it rest for at least 24 hours. I thought I had a handle on my perfectionist nature, but not so, judging my reaction to some of my writing. Half the time, I was convinced that I was writing utter dreck for my wordcount that day. Now that I'm in the editing phase, the writing is fine! Rough around the edges, but nowhere near the horrors my brain told me during the writing process. I wonder if my writing reads "better" when I do it infrequently because it was relatively painless to write.
Get a buddy. I don't think I would have made it without a member of my household also doing NaNo. We would set up camp at the kitchen table or in the living room and just write. It was motivating, and it also kept housemates from distracting us with conversation or movies.
Yes, one area of your life will suffer, but you can prioritize which. I was really, really worried about my work suffering. Teaching kids is important! I was also worried about falling out of touch with friends and maintaining my relationship. Turns out that I kept up with both just fine. I skipped a few workouts during November. My meals were not as well-planned, nor were my outfits, but I did fine.
Back it all up. I've never had a problem with GDocs or GMail refusing to save, which is where I do all of my writing. It turns out that Blogger is a piece of shit that autosaves so quickly that you can't undo pressing Ctrl+Z, which sucks if you just copy-pasted a whole post and you didn't notice all your text disappearing. At least, that's what I'm theorizing happened to this 1200-word heartfelt post I wrote about teaching. :(
You will learn your best writing schedule. You'll have to. Which doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to write according to your best writing schedule, heh. My best times for writing are late morning, after I've eaten breakfast and taken care of a few household chores, and the afternoon, which is a time I'd rather be sitting quietly anyway. For those of you playing along at home, that means that I was not on my best writing schedule 5 days a week, and frequently it was 6 days a week. This is good information to have for summer vacation.
In the end, November is still in a bad month for me to NaNo. Oh, I think that I could manage another "write 50k of whatever you feel like" month during November. I would rather write an entire novel in a month with more school vacation and no family holidays, though. February would give me fewer days but the cold weather would give me less incentive to go out, plus there's a week of school vacation. April would be great as well, since Easter is not much of a thing for my family and there's also a week off. July and August would be a little tricky, vacation-wise, but I could also write for 40 hours a week instead of 10-12. So many possibilities!
I'm grateful to have had this experience. :) There's a feather for my cap!
Now that I am done with my Secret Mutant pinch hits, let the great editing process begin! (And also the writing of Yuletide treats, because let's be real.)
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I feel good about my decision to write 50k of whatever I wanted, rather than 50k of one project. November is still not the best month for a massive writing project, especially the November I had, with final projects due for my class and then Thanksgiving travel, plus lesson planning and report cards and a ton of paperwork. Oh, and a publishing party, because I am a masochist and decided to have it in November instead of December. Why, self? (So I can take December 23 as a personal day, that's why.) Anyway, I didn't count any of my lesson planning or class discussion posts, but a few work things were so ridiculously long that I ended up counting them as part of NaNo because they took actual creativity. 45k, though? All for the blog, or Secret Mutant, or Yuletide, or various WIPs.
A few discoveries along the way:
Get ahead early and often. You will need days off to deal with work stuff, or life stuff, or just to rest. I was never impossibly far behind because I hit a little over par for most days, but I would have loved to have won NaNo about a week early so I could edit the 50k. Which brings me to...
Not being able to edit is so frustrating! I never got so far ahead that I could take time to edit anything. Writing so much on such a tight deadline lends itself to repetition, narrative shortcuts, and a general mishmash of typos. I produced a lot more words than normal, but they were also significantly less polished. I've actually forgotten how much writing I have to edit because it was just "finish this thing, move on to the next thing."
Your crap writing won't seem so bad if you let it rest for at least 24 hours. I thought I had a handle on my perfectionist nature, but not so, judging my reaction to some of my writing. Half the time, I was convinced that I was writing utter dreck for my wordcount that day. Now that I'm in the editing phase, the writing is fine! Rough around the edges, but nowhere near the horrors my brain told me during the writing process. I wonder if my writing reads "better" when I do it infrequently because it was relatively painless to write.
Get a buddy. I don't think I would have made it without a member of my household also doing NaNo. We would set up camp at the kitchen table or in the living room and just write. It was motivating, and it also kept housemates from distracting us with conversation or movies.
Yes, one area of your life will suffer, but you can prioritize which. I was really, really worried about my work suffering. Teaching kids is important! I was also worried about falling out of touch with friends and maintaining my relationship. Turns out that I kept up with both just fine. I skipped a few workouts during November. My meals were not as well-planned, nor were my outfits, but I did fine.
Back it all up. I've never had a problem with GDocs or GMail refusing to save, which is where I do all of my writing. It turns out that Blogger is a piece of shit that autosaves so quickly that you can't undo pressing Ctrl+Z, which sucks if you just copy-pasted a whole post and you didn't notice all your text disappearing. At least, that's what I'm theorizing happened to this 1200-word heartfelt post I wrote about teaching. :(
You will learn your best writing schedule. You'll have to. Which doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to write according to your best writing schedule, heh. My best times for writing are late morning, after I've eaten breakfast and taken care of a few household chores, and the afternoon, which is a time I'd rather be sitting quietly anyway. For those of you playing along at home, that means that I was not on my best writing schedule 5 days a week, and frequently it was 6 days a week. This is good information to have for summer vacation.
In the end, November is still in a bad month for me to NaNo. Oh, I think that I could manage another "write 50k of whatever you feel like" month during November. I would rather write an entire novel in a month with more school vacation and no family holidays, though. February would give me fewer days but the cold weather would give me less incentive to go out, plus there's a week of school vacation. April would be great as well, since Easter is not much of a thing for my family and there's also a week off. July and August would be a little tricky, vacation-wise, but I could also write for 40 hours a week instead of 10-12. So many possibilities!
I'm grateful to have had this experience. :) There's a feather for my cap!
Now that I am done with my Secret Mutant pinch hits, let the great editing process begin! (And also the writing of Yuletide treats, because let's be real.)
http://littledust.dreamwidth.org/542365.html |
comments | Comment at Dreamwidth