NaNoWriMo is over for another year and I’m pleased to say I reached the 50,000 word target a couple of days before 30 November. The last 6000 words just flew by.
I’ve held off posting about it until now because I wanted to wait until I finished the book, not just achieved the target. Because what’s the point of leaving off before you get to ‘THE END’?
I was also apprehensive about the 30 November deadline passing. What if I stopped writing? What if the impetus just shrivelled up like a dehydrated shiitake mushroom?
So I kept writing in my daily to-do list “Nano 2K” to trick my brain into staying motivated. It was hard work at first. Instead of 2000 words, there were a couple of days where I only wrote 500 words. For some reason, getting to the end was proving difficult.
But on Tuesday this week I had a sudden drive to burn through the penultimate chapter and recorded 3000 words for the day. I was impressed. It helps when you’re really into the scene.
And then on Wednesday I committed to finish it off and I did. Final chapter and epilogue down, bringing my total word count to 60,000+ words.
I don’t mind saying that I felt a rush of pride at reaching my goals. I completed NaNoWriMo, finished a first draft of a NEW STORY and, apart from three days out of 34, wrote every day.
The highlights from this season of NaNoWriMo were, as always, moments when I was writing by the seat of my pants (plot? what plot?) and connections would surface between seemingly disparate sections of the book.
Right at the end I remembered a character’s motivation from the beginning and was able to bring that back in to save the day. I LOVE it when that happens.
Where do we go from here?
Of course, this is just a first draft and, as always, it’s steaming, it’s messy, it’s unfit for human consumption. But you can’t edit a blank page and I filled up a lot of pages.
It’s going to take a lot of work to get it ready for submission stage but, having written it and fallen in love with the story and wanting to see these characters’ tale brought out into the open, I’m willing to do the work.
However, I’m not sure what to do next.
I think I’ll let it sit for at least a month, percolating away in my brain to see if any of the plot problems I came across will iron themselves out.
But I also don’t want to lose momentum so I might return to the story I put on hold and continue writing that. Maintaining the habit of writing almost every day is important and will stand me in good stead for my career.
After all, a writer writes.
Now, that’s enough preening. Off to reward myself with something fun. And I’m keen to hear how you went with NaNoWriMo so please leave a comment below.
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