#NaNoWriMo is over! It started like this… with an idea. If you were really organized, you had an outline done ahead of time.
and you worked like this… getting all those lovely words down ‘on paper’.
had moments like this… when your imaginary friends quit talking to you.
overcame them and wrote like this… when the voices got over their snit and started talking again.
and at the end of it all, you look like this… frazzled, feeling punchy and starving!
I didn’t set out at the beginning of November to complete 50,000 words in the month. What I wanted to do was write every day (something that I’ve not always made time for).
I might not have a ‘winner’ badge for having my numbers crunched by the #NaNo algorithm and having the minimum number of 50,000 but I consider myself a winner because I achieved everything I wanted to in the month.
At 3:39 yesterday afternoon, I had completed 21,813 words… I’ve got my beginning and my middle, but I still don’t know how my magnum opus is going to end. That is really unusual for me. Under normal circumstances I know the ending and write it first. Then I have the fun of getting there. I’m in uncharted waters here and I’m not sure I’m liking it.
I didn’t outline and as I wrote merrily away, I discovered major flaws in my logic. Oh well, scenes can be cut and pasted and new transitions between them written, not to mention returning the array of plot bunnies that will undoubtedly be released to run amok safely to their warren.
So, how did your #NaNoWriMo month go?
Well I completed Nano. Over 50,000 words. Now? I just want to go and lie down in a darkened room for about a week! lol. I did plan for once and it worked out pretty ok although the story kept taking lots of different twists and turns and not what I expected. It’ll take me 6 months to rewrite and edit the entire thing and now that I’ve finished it I’m already having new ideas about what I should now add! Brain hurts! Well done on your Nano achievement Melanie. x
Good for you, JB! Over 50,000 words is quite an achievement. My story did the same. Kept going in directions I wasn’t expecting and when I tried to get it back on track my character(s) got mad and quit talking to me… LOL! So I wrote from a different one’s POV thereby making miffed character jealous and wanting to get back into the action.
We’ve all heard of “Bride-zilla” – well, a few times during the month, I think I turned into “Nano-zilla”. 🙂
Congratulations, Melanie. You’ve achieved your goal. That’s wonderful. The ending will come, most likely when you least expect it. Enjoy the process.
Thanks Beverly! Fingers crossed the ending doesn’t come in the middle of the night. But if it does, I’ll get up and write it.
NaNoWriMo was quite productive for me as well. I try to write every day, even if it’s jotting things down in notebooks. But I managed to write half of my MFA thesis from NaNo. It also helped me solve a couple of plot holes and organize many chapters I had no idea where they’d be! Starting this, I so had an ending in sight, now, thanks to getting this far, I’m not so sure… Is that weird?
Congrats on the thesis work! Very impressive. I’ve discovered a couple of plot holes in my WIP that can be fixed by rearranging scenes. I don’t think it’s weird at all having an ending in mind and now you don’t.
Thanks for stopping by! 🙂