I was so excited that I was able to participate this year in the National November Writer’s Month. I started writing on November 1st…
…and by the end of November, I only had about 5000 words. Most of that was done during the first week, when not surprisngly, I was the most enthusiastic about the whole thing. What went wrong? School and work. I had hoped that the idea of writing 50,000 words in a month would help inspire me to write something meaningful, but instead, it felt like a chore. It is simply not fun for me to leave the house at 7 AM, and not get back home until 10 PM, and then try to churn out 2000+ words before 11. I realized there was no way I could do everything else (full class load, 3 part time jobs, audition/rehearsal for play…AAHHHH! :eek: ) AND write a 50k word novel. It was masochistic.
I’m kind of disappointed I flopped out of it so easily- I had written a 45,000 word novel over the summer back in High School, and so I felt like I really had potential to do this. I guess the best way to salvage the situation is to continue writing, since I have Christmas Vacation, and being sick right now I’ve been spending a lot of time sitting around in the house.
Then again, I did get a lot of work done on my “real” novel (the first draft of which was completed during Nano '03) and I finished a short story. So the month wasn’t totally wasted. And I still really like my story, and plan to finish it once I finish the real novel. Though it might have to be a novella; the story really isn’t deep enough for a full-length novel.
If anything, my problem this time around was that I anticipated Nano too much… when I did it in '02 I didn’t even have an outline to work from, and I barely had one in '03. (I finished both of those.) This time, I had sketched out full character descriptions, had every little detail of the plot in place, and didn’t allow myself to deviate from the rigidly structured plan. And I just froze up; nothing I wrote seemed to be good enough to measure up to the great and wonderful outline, and I wouldn’t let myself change the outline. So I know what I’m going to do in '05–no plan, no sketches, no nothing. Just a very general idea about the theme.
I did it all – concept, planning, outline, 50,030 words, in November
Of course it helps that I have no job and no life.
But oddly enough, it’s better than my other two novels which were written over more months (and were shorter if not the same size.) Then again I wrote them as a teen.
This one has, like, a plot, and characterizations, and dia…okay, it doesn’t have dialogue. But I wrote more names (and better names!) than in all my previous writings combined.
I did not. The first year I did it (for me 2002), but this and last year, failure.
The first year I was only working part-time, my job was slackish, and life was less busy. Now I’m working full-time, busier and have a commute. That’s my excuse, anyway.
The first year, too, I had no plot going in–and finished. The two other times, had outlines, sufficient for 50,000 words if not more, and still, failure.
I think I will avoid it next year. November’s a bad time of year, and having to do NaNo after work etc. really puts me behind for Christmas preparations.
I agree. November was particularly busy for me. And another big factor that made it difficult to work…
I am a man of rituals and habits. In other words, I work much more efficiently when I can perform a task under set parameters i.e. work on it the same time every day, for a minimum duration of time. The problem is that I do so many things through the day, and many of the things (work schedule) is absolutely nuts, making it nearly impossible to commit to a certain time to get working. Doing it in random spurts doesn’t work well for me, and also cuts into free time that I may want to just go outside, or take a nap, etc. So that really messed me up.
I made it. Of course, I’ve scarcely written anything since… js_africanus also made it through - I’d like to think that my nagging helped with that, though I’m not sure he’d agree.
Finished. And even sent a copy to a volunteer reader, who’s kindly pointed out some of the plot holes, failures of characterization, and plain awkward language … Still, it might be salvageable, as a story. Maybe I’ll start rewriting, come NaNoEdMo. Maybe.
Man, tell me about it. I clocked in at 11:57 with 50,008 words, ahahahaha. The last few chapters were a flurry of “oh, what the hell” adverbs and, er, plot ninjas.
I decided not to even attempt it this year - I’d just been promoted at work and was suddenly putting in longer hours. Besides, the story I had in mind wasn’t as interesting as the ones I was already working on, so I wrote on those instead. I didn’t finish last year either…but I picked the story up again recently and realized it didn’t want to be 50,000 words, which is why I gave up on it last November. I got to 17,000 last year, and it’ll probably be less than 22,000 when I finish the last couple of scenes. it’s here if anyone wants to read it when it’s done
What’s weird is that when I signed up, I thought maybe I was being crazy since I had a whole website to develop and a bit catalogue to produce and not only did I write ZERO words for nanowrimo, I didn’t get my work stuff done either I don’t know what the hell I did all month. It’s almost January and I’m barely started my big work stuff that I had planned to crunch through.
Sometimes it really works for me to ask a lot of myself, and I can be crazy productive, but other times it is pure folly. Pure folly, I say.
I don’t know what the hell I did all month. It’s almost January and I’m barely started my big work stuff that I had planned to crunch through.