No, as a matter of fact, I didn't finish NaNoWriMo again this year...
...but I made a valiant effort.
And so, with 35,280 words written, you can understand why I'm blogging instead of trying to cram the 14,720 words that I need to write into the hour and a half I have left of November.
The fact of the matter is, I have written 35,280 words more than on any writing project, short of a blog entry, that I've attempted in years. Not to mention, this project has been hitting too close to home for comfort since I started it. I do plan on finishing the novel that I so enthusiastically jumped into on November 1st, and I plan on finishing it with 100,000 words, not the mere 50K that NaNoWriMo.org requires of its participants.
I'm also setting a new deadline, that being December 31st.
So, after spending a month writing in frantic spurts and chanting the mantra "quantity over quality" repeatedly as I resisted the urge to delete the whole crappy thing, I've come to a few realizations.
1. Characters are not going to do what you tell them to do. They are going to do what they want to do, period. End of story. I went into this thing full throttle, flying mostly by the seat of my pants, with only one solid character. The rest of the characters sort of appeared out of nowhere, and then proceeded to dictate what happened, despite the rough synopsis that I had, and later, the even rougher outline that I had come up with. Some of the most recent plot twists have me scratching my head in confusion, but the characters said that's what happened, so, I have to go with it.
2. Writing about something you've experienced, even on a fictional level, is hard. Especially with my subject matter. My protagonist is a battered woman, and having been a victim of domestic violence, I've had to relive some excruciating experiences this last month. It helps that the MC is getting to take care of her problems in ways that I only wish that I could have, that being putting her abusive, drunkard, cheating husband out of her misery and then finding a creative way to dispose of his body. But still... not my idea of a trip to Disney World.
3. Research is indeed a writer's best friend. More specifically, Google. Go ahead and look up such things as "roadkill composting" and then find yourself an article on the forensics of an accident involving a wood chipper, and you will understand exactly what I mean.
4. Quantity over quality is the only way to write a first draft. I've been itching to go back and edit, to fix things, fill in plot holes and flesh out characters, but I won't do it. Not until I have a finished rough draft that I can rip to pieces later on. I need to get this story out, and the only way to do that is to vomit massive quantities of words out of my brain and into the computer until there aren't any words left.
5. Setting goals is important. Having a daily word count quota kept me motivated on most days this month. True, it also caused me to slack off, but life gets in the way sometimes, no matter how much we plan in advance.
That being said, whoever decided that National Novel Writing Month should take place in November should have their head examined.
Duh... Thanksgiving? I spent the day before and the Sunday after in a car driving my ass to my mother's for the holiday and then back home. A drive that ate up 14 hours and 14.5 hours respectively each way. Not to mention the three days spent with family that I don't see every day. How rude is that, to hole yourself up in the guest room and spend hours writing?
I'm not making excuses for that, and I shouldn't have to.
So, lessons learned, new goals set, and at the end of December I will have something that I can build on.
That is, if Christmas and New Year's Eve don't get in the way.
And, incidentally, I have one last good reason for not writing while I was away:
Because getting drunk and making an ass of yourself in the company of family is important, too.
And so, with 35,280 words written, you can understand why I'm blogging instead of trying to cram the 14,720 words that I need to write into the hour and a half I have left of November.
The fact of the matter is, I have written 35,280 words more than on any writing project, short of a blog entry, that I've attempted in years. Not to mention, this project has been hitting too close to home for comfort since I started it. I do plan on finishing the novel that I so enthusiastically jumped into on November 1st, and I plan on finishing it with 100,000 words, not the mere 50K that NaNoWriMo.org requires of its participants.
I'm also setting a new deadline, that being December 31st.
So, after spending a month writing in frantic spurts and chanting the mantra "quantity over quality" repeatedly as I resisted the urge to delete the whole crappy thing, I've come to a few realizations.
1. Characters are not going to do what you tell them to do. They are going to do what they want to do, period. End of story. I went into this thing full throttle, flying mostly by the seat of my pants, with only one solid character. The rest of the characters sort of appeared out of nowhere, and then proceeded to dictate what happened, despite the rough synopsis that I had, and later, the even rougher outline that I had come up with. Some of the most recent plot twists have me scratching my head in confusion, but the characters said that's what happened, so, I have to go with it.
2. Writing about something you've experienced, even on a fictional level, is hard. Especially with my subject matter. My protagonist is a battered woman, and having been a victim of domestic violence, I've had to relive some excruciating experiences this last month. It helps that the MC is getting to take care of her problems in ways that I only wish that I could have, that being putting her abusive, drunkard, cheating husband out of her misery and then finding a creative way to dispose of his body. But still... not my idea of a trip to Disney World.
3. Research is indeed a writer's best friend. More specifically, Google. Go ahead and look up such things as "roadkill composting" and then find yourself an article on the forensics of an accident involving a wood chipper, and you will understand exactly what I mean.
4. Quantity over quality is the only way to write a first draft. I've been itching to go back and edit, to fix things, fill in plot holes and flesh out characters, but I won't do it. Not until I have a finished rough draft that I can rip to pieces later on. I need to get this story out, and the only way to do that is to vomit massive quantities of words out of my brain and into the computer until there aren't any words left.
5. Setting goals is important. Having a daily word count quota kept me motivated on most days this month. True, it also caused me to slack off, but life gets in the way sometimes, no matter how much we plan in advance.
That being said, whoever decided that National Novel Writing Month should take place in November should have their head examined.
Duh... Thanksgiving? I spent the day before and the Sunday after in a car driving my ass to my mother's for the holiday and then back home. A drive that ate up 14 hours and 14.5 hours respectively each way. Not to mention the three days spent with family that I don't see every day. How rude is that, to hole yourself up in the guest room and spend hours writing?
I'm not making excuses for that, and I shouldn't have to.
So, lessons learned, new goals set, and at the end of December I will have something that I can build on.
That is, if Christmas and New Year's Eve don't get in the way.
And, incidentally, I have one last good reason for not writing while I was away:
Click to viewBecause getting drunk and making an ass of yourself in the company of family is important, too.