Wednesday, December 1, 2010

To Win or Not to Win

Woo! It's been a while since I've posted. Sorry for that, but last month was insane! Between finishing a class and having to turn in 26 pages of a film script for it, working on NaNoWriMo, and being extremely sick for 2 weeks, it was just a crazy month.

So, yes, I officially did participate in NaNoWriMo. No, I did not win, but I'm okay with that. I wrote 18,000 words in a week and a half! I was and still am so thrilled! It puts me at about 26k total for my thesis novel. But, after that I got so sick for almost two weeks and couldn't write anything. Since I had a final coming up, that took precedence over NaNo. By the time I was able to function enough to write, I had a week and a half left and it meant I would have to write 3200 words a day in order to finish.

At this point, I decided that I would continue to write every day, but not give myself an insane goal. While it is possible for me to write that much, I worried that I would start to burn out if I didn't go along with my natural flow of writing. Forcing myself to write 1700 words a day for NaNo was easy, but forcing 3200 words? I just couldn't do it.

Even though I didn't "win" I feel like I did what I set out to do. When the whole thing started all I really wanted out of it was to write my novel every day and to get a good section of it written. I did. I'm just over 1/3 finished with the novel at 26,000 words and I intend to make a 1700 word a day goal to finish it up this month, since I need it finished by the end of the year in order to give myself a month away from it before I have to start editing it like crazy starting February. My thesis is due at the end of May, I believe, so I want to be sure to have a few months to edit, send to a couple writing partners and then re-edit. So, December has unofficially become my PeNoWriMo or "Personal Novel Writing Month". Haha!

[READER QUESTION] If you participated in NaNoWriMo, how did you do? If you didn't participate, how many words per day do you usually write?

4 comments:

  1. Nice job! I'm in the same boat with you. Sorta. I outlined for most of the month, working on other stuff and well...procrastinating. Finally got cracking on the last week and a half and got about 10k done. Was happy with the start and will continue with my own PeNoWriMo (nice acronym mod).

    You're writing a novel for your thesis? Sounds like fun. Maybe I should get an MFA. ;-)

    I've got a post on my feelings about NaNoWriMo (positive) on my blog http://www.CliftonH.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. I didn't participate this year...too busy editing...maybe next year.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Following you now...would you mind following me? It's funny, we both have 30 something followers!

    demitrialunetta.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have learned not to set myself impossible goals! So I'm 70 and just having my first book, a memoir, published by a small press. But hey, I did it!!

    I found you through KarenG's blog just now, and came over to meet you. If you have time, drop by and meet me and my disabled daughter. I'm now your follower.

    Stay well! Don't push yourself so hard that you get sick again!!
    Ann Best, Long Journey Home

    ReplyDelete