NaNoWriMo Bad, Bad, Bad

Yes, that’s right. It is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) time again. That means lots of crazy writers–we’re talking thousands upon thousands–are all converging to try and write a novel of at least 50,000 words in one month. And that month would be November.

Have I done it? Yes.

Have I succeeded? Yes.

Have I failed? Yes.

Have I a pile of wonderful, exciting first drafts that are sitting around impatiently waiting for me to have the time to come back to them since creating them during NaNo? Yes. (This is the “bad, bad, bad” part of this post’s title.)

Will I be doing NaNo again this year? Sadly, no.

Will I write at all in November? Heck yeah. I just don’t have the time to commit myself to 50K on something new. And “commit myself” is the right phrase. We’re talking creating serious mental issues if I try to do it this year. Plus then I’ll have ANOTHER first draft of a lovely story picking at me to become a lovely, edited novel for someone else’s eyes.

This is so, so true!

What, you may ask, is the lure of NaNoWriMo? For many it’s watching that little word count thermometer rise and rise and rise until it hits the 50K mark. It’s addicting really. It releases a little something inside that kicks the internal editor right on its sorry little behind. The words come flying out. The story soars and floods the page. It is exhilarating. It’s a challenge too. And for some, there are the bragging rights as well. To say you wrote a novel in a month. Well now. That’s really something!

Wanna give it a go? NaNo has a lovely support group/writers group on its website. And lovely badges to post with pride. And many other gadgetry goodness that will for sure have your hot little hands rubbing themselves together.

Enjoy!

Core Writing: NaNoWriMo and Me

Okay, so I’m not going to make it. I’m not going to cross the 50,000 word mark in my new story before NaNoWriMo ends at midnight on the 30th of November.

I knew it would take me longer than a month to write the first draft of this story before I started NaNoWriMo. (I started anyway because all my friends are doing it and it’s a lot of fun.) Now that I’m more than half way through my NaNo days, I’m quite certain I won’t cross 50K in the next week and a half.  I’ve just crossed the 10, 000 word mark. Seeing as this is a story where writing more than 2,000 words a day leaves my brain feeling a bit like a wad of cotton balls, I can’t see the pace speeding up. So, I won’t be done by November 30th. I won’t get a ‘winner’ badge this year. But I’ll have a new story. One I’ve procrastinated on for a long time because the ‘whole’ story hasn’t landed in my head like most do. It’s a one step forward at a time, punctuated by pauses, kind of story.

Will I finish the story? Yes, of course. I figure that by December 30th I should have the first draft down. While in the past I may have been tempted to push and rush and force this story to progress faster, I know that won’t work for this story.

This project is bringing out a different writer in me. My characters do not have names. It kind of works, too. While I wrote the first few plot points, I couldn’t figure out why I seemed to have so much of the storyline down, but still be so close to the beginning in terms of word count. Was I writing a short story by accident? Then last night I realized I am writing the core of the story. The muse has been feeding me the story’s core. Once that is down, I’ll have to go back and flesh out the story’s bystanders. Add more details. It’s interesting. Never before have I written a story this way. I sure hope my muse is still looking over my shoulder when it comes to fleshing out the core.