In the past six years, I’ve participated in (and “won”) NaNoWriMo four times.1 It has been frustrating, stressful, inspirational, enlightening, and fun each time. There is something special about these month-long events. If you do it “right”, and completely let go of your inhibitions–if you abandon the false presumption that your writing will be any […]
…or: The most amazing and energizing fun thing that I’ll (probably) never do again. First and foremost: my hat is off to the NaNoWriMo organizers–Chris Baty and Lindsey Grant and everyone else involved (too numerous to mention)–and to all the authors who took time to write encouraging essays and pep talk videos. And more so, […]
Short version: In my fourth NaNoWriMo effort1, I have “won” again. Turning in 63,311 words. And I’ve probably got at least that many to go to finish the draft of this novel. That is to say, it’s only about halfway done. There’s a “long version” of this post that I’m thinking of making–some reflections on […]
Turning it in at 52,703 of 50,000 (105.41%).  Got… 70% of the way to a novel?  With a bunch of extraneous stuff there in the middle, most likely.  Unnecessary verbosity.  But it still feels good to hit >50,000 words in a month.
And yes, I “fini…
+1,767 = 52,146 of 50,000 (104.29%)
Skipped Thanksgiving; did a little today and tonight, trying to wrap up and round out the scene I’d been working on.  Even more convinced now that there’s a lot more than a month’s worth of writing to get me t…
+669 = 50,379 of 50,000 (100.76%)
Tipped up and over.  But the story is far from done.  (There’s just a lot of fluff in the early bits…)  Going to peck away at this until November is over—see how far I can take it—and stub out the rest of th…
+1,804 = 49,710 of 50,000 (99.42%)
I know what you’re thinking:  Really?  You’re stopping with 290 words to go?
Well here’s what I’m thinking:  Yes, really.  These past two nights I’ve gotten a late start, but once I got that start, I’v…
+1,723 = 47,906 of 50,000 (95.81%)
Barely eeked over the minimum for the night.  Got a late start and an even later finish.  Exhausted, but holy shit why wasn’t I writing the story this way all along?
+2,467 = 45,149 of 50,000 (90.30%)
4,851 words to go.  10,163 words ahead of the “set†daily pace-to-match.  Roughly six and a half days ahead of schedule.
So that feels good.
But I also feel like I’m flailing a lot.  Like there’s a story in…
+2,050 = 42,682 of 50,000 (85.36%)
A little here, a little there…  Some decent scene work.  But I feel like I hit a wall.  Maybe I’ll just force a jarring transition in the next round and jump to that next idea.  Not sure how to get there from …