NaNoWriMo - done

I did it.  Fifty-thousand-plus words in thirty days (twenty-nine actually, if we want to be picky).

At one point, I was a whopping 10,000 words behind schedule (work is truly the curse of the creative mind!) and honestly thought I’d never catch up.  Luckily, a couple of really long and fertile weekend sessions got me back on track and the words came thick and fast for the final downhill rush to the finish.

Phew!

So, what did I get from the experience, apart from a sore neck and shoulders from hunching over my laptop?

Firstly, a HUGE buzz for having met the challenge.  I'm naturally quite goal-oriented so NaNoWriMo  really chimed with me. 

Secondly, I now have what I think is a workable first draft for a story idea I’ve been kicking around in my head for years.  This means more to me than the buzz of making the wordcount.

Just as I was setting out on NaNoWriMo, I followed a link on A Beer for the Shower  - the MOST awe-inspiring blog in the bloggie-verse – fail to follow it at your peril!.  This led to an article by one Laura Miller, called Better Yet – DON’T Write That Novel.  This article says, amongst other things, that NaNoWriMo, because it encourages people just to write and ignore (for the moment) the quality, is causing far too much crap to be written – crap which gets sent to hapless editors and agents, apparently. 

To answer this: I know my NaNo is NOT the finished article.  I would be a deluded idiot to imagine otherwise, and would not dream of showing it to anybody other than my NaNoBuddy Don’t Feed the Pixies without a thorough revamp.  I daresay most NaNos are execrably bad and should be burnt immediately, but that’s NOT the point.

The point, for me at least, is that I had to discipline myself to sit down and pound out a story, come what may.  I’ve never approached writing in quite this way before (and I have been writing all my adult life).  It is such a refreshing change!

I have several half-baked novels which have withered through over-editing and general faffing about to the point I get bored with them.  What I have learned this year is that if you just keep going, it IS possible to get to the end AND you won’t actually die if there are some inconsistencies or plot holes, because these can be fixed in the re-write.

Having a definite goal to reach really pulled the story out of me and made it grow and change in ways I never would have imagined.  Characters appeared as extras, then suddenly blossomed into really interesting people.  The setting changed.  Heck, just about everything did.

Recommendations for anybody (including me) thinking of doing a NaNo in the future:

Have at least a start and a finish for the story – you can fill in the middle as you go.

Have a buddy to urge you onwards.  DFTP and I exchanged texts most days and talked about our progress and this kept the thing alive for me.

And finally: just give it a go!  What’s the worst that can happen?

Just for funsies, here's what I imagine the back-cover blurb for my NaNo might be:

The construction of FS-111-Albert-Einstein is almost complete.  When fully operational, the station will be one of the most important and potentially lucrative nodes in the FarNetwork, providing a valuable shortcut between two of the busiest sectors in the Ninety Worlds. 

For two years now, construction has progressed more or less without a hitch, but about a month ago, things started to go wrong.

At first, it was just inexplicable graffiti appearing on walls and some minor vandalism. 

Then a loading bot accidentally crushes a couple of construction workers.

Shortly after that, the suicides begin – or at least, what appear to be suicides. 

Has all the construction project’s bad luck simply come at once?  Is it some kind of malicious action by a rival corporation, eager to snatch the node licence from Amalgamated Leisure?  Or is there a deranged and ingenious killer aboard FS-111?

Gideon Taverner, a freelance security consultant, is hired to find out.

Yeah, because what the internet really needs right now

...is another perishing cat poem.

I really should be doing my NaNoWriMo (nearly 25,000 words in, thanks for asking).

It's actually been quite liberating just writing without stopping every five minutes to go back and edit. I'd reccommend doing NaNo for this reason alone.

The story has changed almost completely out of recognition. My original concept was going to be set in a very small setting with just a few characters. Within just a few paragraphs of starting, it changed to a much large setting and had loads more characters - most of whom are just background to be fair, so don't really figure in the story itself, but they were never meant to be there.

It's also taking much longer simply to type in the words than I expected. If things are flowing, I can get about 2,500 words entered in a stint of a few hours.

It's proving to be a really good exercise in discipline though. If I want to hit the target I have to make my word count each day. End of. I'm not 100% conviced that I am going to make it, but I am going to give it my best shot.

Anyway, back to that cat poem

He is a cat of the edges,
Of High places and ledges,
Of four-clawed defences,
Of walking on fences.

He is all about sneaking,
Of nosing and peeking,
Of staring and thinking,
Of slow languid blinking.

He is of playfully pawing,
Of lightning fast clawing,
Of suddenly chasing,
Of restlessly pacing.

He is of stalking and pouncing,
Of walking and bouncing,
Of stretching and leaping,
Of suddenly sleeping.

He is of dreamily twitching,
Of magic and witching,
Of warning and prowling,
Of warring and yowling.

He is a cat of the edges,
Of High places and ledges,
Of fireside and mat,
Of contradictions, this cat.

NaNoWriMo is here and I'm joining in!

Yes, after faffing about for a couple of years, I’ve finally decided to have a go at this National Novel Writing Month malarky (actually, it should be International Novel Writing Month by now, surely?). 

The question is: can I pump out a 50,000 word novelette in just 30 days?

My good friend Don't Feed the Pixies did exactly that a couple of years ago, and produced a highly readable and thrilling story, which I personally think he needs to go back to and brush up with a view towards publication - jus' sayin'.

I need to knock out at least 1,667 words a day on average for 30 days to get there. 

Doesn’t sound too bad when you say it like that, does it?  It can take me 1,000 words just to get warmed-up sometimes. 

Mind you, I’ve already managed to miss one whole day through having to go to work then having to go to a KT Tunstall gig (which was brilliant, in case you were wondering), so now I need to catch up if I’m to stay on track.  I've created a spreadsheet to track my progress and everything.

If anybody asks, yesterday was a planning day, ok?

The story I'm going with is one that has been kicking around in my head for years, but about which I have never so much as jotted down a single note on paper.  I’m already abuzz with thoughts of possible interesting (I hope) characters to plonk into my story.  It will be Science Fiction, set in the far-ish future (saves piddling about with boring research) and will be a kind of murder mystery suspense-y thing. 

NaNoWriters are, I believe, allowed to do a little planning before 1st November, but the actual writing itself must wait until the first day.

I’ve had a poke about on the NaNoWriMo website and there are forums where you can discuss your ideas, get help with plot holes, etc.  This part of it looks quite interesting, and I particularly like the ‘Adoption Centre’ forum where people leave ideas for character names, funny lines, etc., for others to pick up and use.

I’ve now actually written the first couple of paragraphs (127 words) and am itching to do more, but I have to work. 

Really.

Darn it.