I did it! I started this month with zero words in my novel Alchemist of Heroes, and on Saturday, I finished with 50,076 words in my novel. A few notes from my NaNoWriMo experience:
1. Don’t quit, even if the book you are writing is terrible. I spent the second weekend of NaNoWriMo worrying about what to do about my novel. My plot was stuck, I had no idea where to go from here or how to make it believeable. I didn’t like my main character because she was too passive. I thought about just starting my book over again with a different angle. But I didn’t. On Monday, I just did a five year time jump and kept going. And I started to like my book again. But I got plot-blocked at least two more times during the month, where I had no idea how to write what my outline said I was supposed to write next. One of the most valuable things I learned from NaNo was to keep writing and not worry about how it would turn out and if the writing would be worth it. I ignored self-doubt and kept going, and it turned out better than I thought. By writing through to the end, I found that it is normal and expected to feel like whatever you are currently working on is terrible. Finish it first, then decide if it’s terrible.
2. Writing under time pressure really helps. I worked most of the month in 15 minute writing sprints. Most of my sprints, I got between 350-450 words. The few times I was able to get consistently more words was times when time was tight, like when my friend and I had planned a write-in at a pastry shop that closed in one hour. I got over 1500 words in that hour alone! Over Thanksgiving break, I would have time for just one sprint before it was time for a family activity, and I found I could get over 500 words. This never happened when I had two hours to write at the library.
3. Drinks are better writing snacks than food. Whenever I had food to snack on, I’d finish it in the first five minutes and be bored the rest of the time. A really hot cup of cocoa or cold water would last much longer. Turns out the stereotype of writers and coffee exists for a reason.
4. Most of the time, you won’t feel like writing. Write anyway. In order to finish 50k words in one month, you have to write when you don’t want to, when you’d rather be deservedly relaxing from a hard day. Guess what? The hardest part is starting. I would frequently make myself try to write for just 15 minutes, and find that I was able to reach my word goal after all, even though everything felt hopeless. The inertia against doing something creative when tired is just that, inertia. If you can get going, you’ll find the next 15 minutes easier than the first 15.
5. I still have a lot to learn about writing a novel. I ran into lots of problems with my outline, particularly with my main character being really reactive and not figuring out my magic system before writing a fantasy novel (apparently that’s important?). Many of these problems I knew about before, and some I didn’t, but having finished one novel, I know I can do it if I keep practicing.
“So can I read it?” I’ve been surprised how many people have asked to read my book this month. The truth is you’re not missing much. If you are a very good friend, I might let you read my book, but be warned that it’s pretty bad. I didn’t name almost anything but the main characters; everyone else is Lord ** and Country starting with F. Also, I made a lot of notes to myself of things that I needed to go back and change in the beginning of the novel, but I couldn’t do that in NaNo where the goal is to finish the dang thing. There’s the whole problem where I didn’t know how the magic system worked at the beginning of the story, so it changed over time. There is a lot of dialogue without tags and the descriptions are really poor (it seems I’m obsessed with paint condition and color to indicate the nature of a building). But it is a somewhat finished story, so if you want to read it, feel free to email me.
So what’s next? I’m still debating whether I will spend time editing my NaNo novel, just for practice at editing and not because I think there’s a lot redeemable about it. Either way, I think I’ll take a break from it for the month of December. My next planned project is to write some short stories based on the elemental genres from season 11 of Writing Excuses. I feel like writing a bunch of short stories in lots of different genres will give me a chance to practice plot, description, and character over and over again without a large time commitment. I will attempt to write at least 5 short stories over the next 3 months.
I’m also continuing to write blog posts for the Protect Young Minds blog. This group is focused on how to protect young children from pornography, and the articles I write focus on how to deal with technology in a family with young children. You can check those articles out here, including my guide to vetting the video games your kids want for Christmas.
