On November 1st, NaNoWriMo matters.
On November 8th, it still matters.
On November 13th, 18th, 24th, mmm, yep, it matters.
(Thanksgiving? Only pie matters. Do not argue this.)
On November 30th? Still matters!
December 1st?
*the quiet sound of crickets fucking*
Today, it doesn’t matter.
This isn’t a dismissal of National Novel Writing Month. Not at all. I’ve come around to love the spirit around that month — a 30 day descent into the lunacy of being a novelist, equal parts fun and frustration (“funstration!”). A hard dive into creative waters. Let it fill your lungs. Drown in it.
Rock the fuck on.
But right now? It doesn’t matter. NaNoWriMo is just the wrapping, the trapping, the springboard, the diving board. It’s what got you going, but it isn’t what matters.
What matters is you. What matters is the work.
And right now, you’ve got something.
I don’t know if it’s finished or not. Did you win or lose?
Forget winning and losing.
You left those words behind when NaNoWriMo ended. What matters now is what happens next.
Don’t know what happens next? Here. I’m going to tell you. Or, at least, I’m going to give you a general idea of what happens next — a menu of permutations and possibilities.
If you didn’t finish what you started, you’re going to finish it. (Why? I told you that last week.)
And if you did finish it?
You are going to congratulate the unholy hellfuckshitpants right off your body. You’re going to congratulate yourself so hard that you wake up in a New Jersey rest-stop three weeks later smelling of coconut oil. In your right pocket you will find a small bottle of whiskey. In your left pocket, someone’s finger. In your mouth: a half-eaten cookie.
Then, take some time away from the story. Just walk away. Cool and calm like an action hero strolling out of an exploding building. Hide it. Forget it. It’s not a thing that happened. It was a fever dream, poorly-remembered. And here’s where your brain will do insidious things because the brain is an insidious organ —
If you keep thinking about it even though you know you’re not supposed to? Then maybe you have something there. If you put it away and the memory of the thing slides through your fingers like so much dream-sand, hey, that’s okay, too. Maybe this one isn’t the one.
But if it is? Then it’s time to get to work. And the work always begins up here —
*taps center of forehead, which squeaks open on a rusty hinge so a squirrel can poke out, chitter at you, steal your bagel and coffee, then return to its nest inside the skull*
And that work first consists of thinking about what you did. Not in the shameful way, like you tell a child or a dog. Just hover over it, intellectually. Pick at it. How do you feel about it? What’d you like about the process, the story, all of it? What are you obsessing about when it comes to the story? Most importantly: start to figure out your battle plan.
What I mean by a battle plan is this: it helps to have an endgame in mind. Maybe you just want to make this thing awesome. Maybe you want to publish it, or self-publish it, or maybe this one is just a practice go-round, or could be that you’re going to just let it be a thing you share for free, or a story you scavenge for spare parts. Doesn’t matter — all avenues are valid. But noodle on it.
Then, you get to work.
You’re going to edit it, and edit it, and rewrite it, and re-edit it, and you write and rewrite till its right. You can take it slow or you can take it fast. You can fix the little things first or start breaking it all apart by pushing the plunger down on that box of cartoon TNT. Because now it’s NaEdYoShi month — National Edit Your Shit Month.
What you’re not going to do is send it off.
You’re not going to send it to an agent yet.
You’re not going to send it to an editor.
You’re not going to self-publish it.
Most of you know this already. Some don’t, or know it but think they’re somehow different — exempted from the rules. Do not do it. First, it’s rude to the agents, editors, and readers who have to deal with your broken work. Second, it’s dismissive of you and the story you wrote. You took the time to get here, and now you’re going to hurry it out the door? Nobody’s racing you. Again, get shut of winning and losing. This is not a competition. Don’t poison your own name and your own efforts by punting a deflated kickball. You spent all that time prepping these brownies and now you’re going to pull them out of the oven half-baked because you’re hungry? Fuck hungry. Let them finish. Go nibble on something else — which, creatively, means go write a short story or scribble some funny tweets or write an erotic manifesto at Tumblr. Don’t care. Just don’t put your unfinished, half-assed work out there. No half-measures, Walter.
Now, that said:
You’re going to keep working.
You’re going to take whatever time it needs.
You’ll hire an editor if you have to. Or farm it out to some beta readers. You’ll let a trusted loved one poke holes in it so you can patch those holes up. You’ll think about it again and again, a stone tumbling around the inside of your skull (just watch the squirrel), and then you’ll go back to it.
It’s a strange doll, this story, an ugly and uncertain thing: you’ll keep ripping it apart and tearing out the stuffing and stitching it back together again. Until it looks the way you want it to. Not the way anyone else wants. But the way you want. That takes time and effort though beyond the first flurry of activity, beyond the first draft.
See, the creative process doesn’t just stop with the creating part of the process. Creativity isn’t just in the inception of the thing. It isn’t just in the first iteration. It’s the whole journey. It’s creating, it’s thinking, it’s changing and critiquing and fucking it up and fixing it. It’s what you do with it. It’s how you deliver it. Parenting isn’t just birthing the kid — it’s how you raise it, and your creative work is the same way. People talk about the long tail of sales and exposure, but creativity is beholden to its own long tail, too.
Take the time — because as I’ve noted before, it takes the time that it takes. Maybe it happens fast, maybe it happens slow. But everybody wants things fast, everybody expects to just hit publish or just have an agent fall in love with a hastily-scrawled query letter. We try to jump to the end of our journey before we’ve even bought the damn ticket. Don’t do that. Give your story and your process the oxygen it needs. Give it room. Let it wander, stretch, kick over furniture. Let it settle in like a dog trying to figure out the Perfect Pooping Position or how sleeping must first require three pirouettes, a haunch-shimmy, and an ass-lick.
Give it your time. Go through the process. Take the ride.
Then we can talk about how you put it out there. And don’t worry about perfect. Perfect is somebody else’s idea. Just go with your own satisfaction. Be hard. Give it scrutiny. But hell with other people’s metrics. Use your own. Fuck perfect: just get it right.
(May I recommend NaNoFixMo, an online class by Delilah Dawson? Or consider a novel critique by Hugo- and Nebula-winning author, Saladin Ahmed.)
So, here’s where I ask:
How’d NaNoWriMo go for you folks?
Feel free to talk it up in the comments.
* * *
The journey to become a successful writer is long, fraught with peril, and filled with difficult questions: How do I write dialogue? How do I build suspense? What should I know about query letters? How do I start? What the hell do I do?
The best way to answer these questions is to ditch your uncertainty and transform yourself into a Kick-Ass Writer. This new book from award-winning author Chuck Wendig combines the best of his eye-opening writing instruction — previously available in e-book form only — with all-new insights into writing and publishing. It’s an explosive broadside of gritty advice that will destroy your fears, clear the path, and help you find your voice, your story, and your audience.
Dave Higgins says:
I exceeded 50,000 words the first year I tried NaNoWriMo, and every year since – whether I have entered or not – November has been a bad month for productivity; like I used up all my November Juice on that first attempt.
But that doesn’t matter, because every year since I have authorificated in the other eleven months, too, making a bad month for productivity a very different thing now from what it was a few years ago.
December 1, 2014 — 8:40 AM
Marie Andreas says:
Awesome. This whole post is full of awesome :). Yup I “finished”/”won” NaNo, nope, the book ain’t done yet, yes I will edit the shit out of when it is done :). Thanks for your words of wisdom and humor- needed them after coming off the NaNo High ;).
December 1, 2014 — 8:41 AM
lynnacfrost says:
Totally relate to what you just said Marie!
December 1, 2014 — 5:38 PM
Fi Phillips says:
From the beginning of NaNoWriMo, I knew that my target, rather than the 50k words, was instead to finish the first draft of my second novel. Did I manage it? No but I did get 15 chapters written, which I’m delighted with. NaNo provided me with a massive kickstart and I now have the momentum to keep going.
December 1, 2014 — 8:48 AM
Janice says:
This was my third NaNoWriMo and my first loss but, truthfully, I’m okay with that. I chose my project (a series of interrelated short stories) knowing I might not get through it. There’s a little too much real life happening at the moment, too little emotional and psychological energy for writing. On the upside, I drafted three stories, one of which is still rolling around in my head, so – who knows – in the end it may be my most productive year yet.
In any case, thanks for this, Chuck. Really helpful stuff, as always.
December 1, 2014 — 8:50 AM
milkaholicclown says:
I think I’m halfway between denial and bargaining. Does that apply here? It’s happening again. I want to not let it happen. I hit 40k words and I lose direction and my psyche is taunting “I told you. I told you so.” That not only do I not have a book–I have nothing. There is nothing here! 40k words of nothing. Damn it.
I’m going to write 2k words today anyway. But I feel like I’m throwing more trash on the burn pile. I have lost all direction. It doesn’t make sense anymore. I kept writing on the last longie I did a year ago… got up to like 50k words of nothing. What an embarrassment it was. For me. I didn’t even show it to anyone.
The Secret doesn’t work for me. I can wake up and look in the mirror and say “You are a size 6, Amanda.” I can do that every day three times per day… and I’m not even close! What? I’m hungry!
I feel like anything I add now is going to be a random parable or filler bullshit. I have lost all sense of balance and time. #vertigo #punishme
December 1, 2014 — 8:51 AM
milkaholicclown says:
Shut up, self. Remember your petition to the universe:
“Fix me! With a cure that goes in deep and pulls strings.”
December 1, 2014 — 9:14 AM
tedra says:
It happens. Don’t panic. Keep writing. Its just your mind telling you you’re not good enough. Mine does the same thing. Thats why I have three unfinished novels on my laptop. Thats why I’ve been working on Terrible Things (My NaNoWriMo story) since 2012. Sometimes it takes a little push through so your mind can say, okay, maybe shell really do it this time. I almost gave up writing my story this year because of that little voice but I said, I literally told myself, I’m tired of failing. I won’t fail again. Even if its trash, even if I have to start over from scratch (which I did, redid the whole beginning when I was half way done but I’m halfway done again), I, will, finish. Don’t let your brain talk you out of success. You can do. I’ll even help if I can.
December 1, 2014 — 10:31 AM
Lisa Oliver says:
Wow, you hit 40K – awesome job. And you don’t like it? That’s fine too. Go back and re-read your story and when you see where it starts to fall apart delete something. At one point in one of my books I had to delete five chapters to get the book on track, but the writing was so much easier after that. Sometimes it doesn’t need a major cut. Sometimes you just need to change a couple of paragraphs and what didn’t make sense before suddenly comes clear. Incidentally the second half of the Secret is not just the affirmations, it is living as though you have already achieved your goal. Walk like you are a size 6; act like you are a size 6 and you will be. Write as though you are a successful author, act like you are and I promise you it will come. And that voice that mocks you in your mind? Slap it, you don’t have to listen to anyone who is being negative about what you are doing, including yourself. Good luck 🙂
December 1, 2014 — 3:29 PM
milkaholicclown says:
The fact that you have linear chapters in your first draft and take for granted that anyone would have them indicates that we live in different worlds. I’ve had my little panic attack and I think I’m feeling better now. Thank-you both for the encouragement.
I used to be a size 6. Smaller actually. I remember not being nearly so hungry… and I didn’t have 3 kids. But I will walk around feeling slim and see what happens. Yes. I will cut the tags off my big pants. Maybe I’ll sew new ones in there that say size 6… no. If I did that, then wouldn’t that mean accepting my current body size as a substitution for what I really wanted, therefore canceling out my prayer to the sky gods? Mercury in Libra conjunct 3 outer planets. It’s heavy. I think I need more physics labs. Maybe I will understand my book layout then.
And you’re right. I need to fire that mental executioner… but he has my mother’s face. Pain.
We can all do this. Everything will be fine!
December 1, 2014 — 4:17 PM
pmillhouse says:
Great advice, Oh Wise Pen Monkey.
I finished at 56K – and bought that dragon T-shirt!
But, now I’m delving into other projects while the MS percolates.
I can tell it’s gonna fly, though, because the characters keep waking me up in the middle of the night.
Finding the patience to work on other projects while my brain figures it out qualifies as the most important NaNo lesson. Ever.
December 1, 2014 — 9:04 AM
Brian Switzer says:
I clocked in at 42k, but as far as I’m concerned I ‘won’ Nano. I’ve started five or six novels over the years, rarely getting past chapter two. This will be my first completed ms and it wouldn’t have happened without the NANO ethos of ‘get your butt in the chair and punch out 1700 words a day. Don’t worry about perfection, just write the words.’ Now that ethos is an ingrained habit, so writing the other 30k words its going to take to finish will be a breeze.
December 1, 2014 — 9:09 AM
Peg says:
I “won” – so now I am going to look at all 4 almost-done novels I did this past year and pick a baby to eat and purge. It won’t be my most recent. But, I’m excited, have a friend who is an experienced editor who I trust and have hired to get his red pen out. I’m more excited to finally rewrite than I was to write. This is a first.
December 1, 2014 — 9:10 AM
WallofIllusion (@WallofIllusion) says:
Last year, I won NaNo but struggled over the course of December to actually finish the story I was writing. I reached an ending-ish at last and said I’d take care of it in editing. And then… nothing. I couldn’t figure out where to start editing. I couldn’t make the story make sense. The parts that interested me I had already written multiple times, and I couldn’t figure out how to approach the parts that didn’t interest me. I did Camp NaNo in July to finish up two novella-length pieces–one fanfiction, one original–but I haven’t really worked with last year’s project in over a year, and instead of doing NaNo this past month I instead spent my time getting off the medication that was giving me depression symptoms. >.<
Yesterday, on a bus ride that was twice as long as it needed to be, I started writing the characters at a completely new starting point. I’m excited and terrified.
December 1, 2014 — 9:51 AM
WallofIllusion (@WallofIllusion) says:
“over a year” = almost a year. I am not wording properly this morning, forgive me.
December 1, 2014 — 11:09 AM
Ashlee Jade says:
I did the same thing! Finished the first draft, had no clue what to do with the second. I’m now on a track that I kind of like, but it requires me to write at least a few thousand odd words new material. Exited and terrified sums it up pretty well.
December 1, 2014 — 12:21 PM
Anna says:
I finished NaNo at 53k and a finished first draft. This was major for me since last year (my first year) and NaNo camp in April I tapped out at about 35k. So, this year I proved to myself what i was capable of. I finished with time to spare and probably could have managed more but the story evolved while writing and took an unexpected turn for me (not complaining) so the small gaps in the story I decided should wait until my first rewrite when I harmonize everything.
However, I found while I was doing this NaNo I was pining over my April project which has been set down this whole time. So December is editing month for my April project while I let November’s percolate.
December 1, 2014 — 10:08 AM
Wesley D. Gray says:
Picked up where I left off on my Nano novel from last year. Killed it the first week then fizzled. I started to feel there wasn’t another 50k left in the story and that I was just padding it to try to “win” and that’s not what the story needs. The story doesn’t give a crap if I “win” Nano. Nano was great last year because it got the story started, but when the month was over, I did experience some burnout which led to a few months of low productivity. I could also see that starting to happen again, so I bowed out and turned the focus to my poetry. Now that Nano is over, I can get back to completing the zero draft at my own pace, which is no where near 50k/month, and I think the story will thank me for it. I know my sanity will.
December 1, 2014 — 10:09 AM
smkay70 says:
Finished last night with a few hours to spare. Now I am going to let it marinate for a few weeks while I go back and finish my last WIP. I had fun with my story and enjoyed the community. And, I now know that I can write over 50,000 words in 30 days. Double my normal monthly wordcount! Congrats to all who won and participated!
December 1, 2014 — 10:13 AM
tedra says:
NaNoWriMo was pretty good. I’ve done better than I’ve done in the past. I’ve gotten like 38k written during November and Im about a chapter away from my middle. So NaNo helped a lot. I like my story from where its come. I like Bethany now. She’s not who I tried to make her but she’s her own, which his feisty and not a people person. She’s not as nosy as I wanted her to be which makes it frustrating to write because how do you find out things if you’re not curious. (give her a curious best friend. After all who lets their best friend run into danger alone???) But I like her. Her boyfriend still needs work because I don’t know well. Her parents back story surprised me, so did her sisters. I wanted her to be the only screwed up one but, ah no. New characters have emerged and so far the flow hasn’t been interrupted by them. It is rough in its own beauty but all of her actions have a purpose and NOW I know why.
December 1, 2014 — 10:23 AM
Ricardo Fayet says:
“Take your time”: this is so important. I feel that at the end of the NaNoWriMo rush many authors want to carry on the momentum by having the book immediately edited, proofread, they want it ready for publication or submission as soon as possible… when, actually, letting it sit for a month or so or heavily redrafting it is often the better option… Anyhow, the most important thing is to keep writing afterwards!
I recently wrote that “NaNo shouldn’t be the exception in an author’s life; it should be the ramp that launches a writing career.”
http://blog.reedsy.com/post/103646896489/whats-wrong-with-nanowrimo
December 1, 2014 — 11:03 AM
Lisa Oliver says:
I totally agree Ricardo – I started my writing career with last years NaNo, even though I have been writing for fifteen years. But last years challenge got my first fiction book finished and this years challenge saw another two books finished – a system in place for editing, covers and publication and readers who ask me everyday when my book is coming out – it’s awesome and it’s all thanks to the discipline NaNo put me through 🙂
December 1, 2014 — 3:33 PM
J. Lamar says:
First time with Nanowrimo. Finished 50K in 25 days. Now I’m in the hell that is editing. So far so good though. I can feel another book waiting in the back of my head which makes me think I might have started something I can’t stop.
December 1, 2014 — 11:29 AM
Kitty Chandler says:
I’m still a little shocked that I managed to not only win NaNoWriMo, but also complete the full outline of the damn draft in that month. That never happens! Literally, I can’t think of a single time when I haven’t had scenes left over after November, after verification.
I think I’m going to sleep for a week.
Or I would if I didn’t have a day job. No, now I’m going to take a couple days off to let the thinkmeats recharge and then go back to editing past Nanonovels in the hopes of getting them out sometime next year. I figure this year’s Nanonovel will go out sometime the year after or sometime after that. The neverending slog. At least it’s all my own schedule, since I’m indie-publishing, it gets eligible for release after no fewer than two full edits and one line edit for spelling, grammar, etc.
… No, I’m really going to go sleep for a week.
December 1, 2014 — 11:29 AM
Delia (Postcards from Asia) says:
This is my second NaNo. I “won” both times but just like the first time, my story is not finished yet. I wouldn’t dream showing it to somebody else now, let alone trying to publish it.
I enjoyed your pep talk on the NaNo site, Chuck, it was my favorite this year.
December 1, 2014 — 11:33 AM
Misa says:
Even though my NaNo win was actually a rewrite of an existing (shitty) draft, it is going NOWHERE.
It’s going to sit and rest, like a particularly nice gammon roast, until mid-January. Then it gets a line by line edit, tweaked, and generally polished. It gets a better blurb and a query that sings like a canary.
Come February, this thing that has bothered me for seven damn years goes out. It’s going to be hell to wait, but it needs the time. I need the time. And when the time is right, it’ll all be good. *nods*
December 1, 2014 — 11:51 AM
Fitz says:
First of all: a great, slappy Internet High-Five to all who finished NaNoWriMo this year. Congratulations! You’re awesome! Also, I hope your marathon-sitting-induced-leg-muscle-atrophy will work itself out soon.
I stalled at 4000 words, and broke a four-year streak on “winning” NaNo. There was just too much going on, and I had no heart in it this time. BUT! I got to experiment with writing a few short horror stories, which turned out great, and I have a larger work processing through the Mad Scientist Lab in my brain. That one will be 2015’s monster baby.
Now that I look at it, I’m pretty proud of my November- even though I stopped well short of the 50,000 word goal. Sometimes progress spreads itself out around you instead of charging ahead in a straight line. It’s nice to finally realize that.
December 1, 2014 — 12:10 PM
Rich Amooi says:
I was far behind, but yesterday put in thirteen hours to write 5300 words and win with ninety minutes to spare. I now have six weeks for revisions, beta readers, and more revisions before it goes to the editor (already have her date set for January 12th). What I wrote was my second romantic comedy which will be published on January 24th.
This was the first time I did Nano and I found that I am more productive when I have the pressure. Yes, I will do it again next year. 🙂
December 1, 2014 — 12:10 PM
StephenK says:
Woo hoo! Dialed in the last few chapters, typed a perfectly useless “THE END” at the end, and authenticated the 50,400 words of crap last night!
Third win in a row, and this post states exactly how I feel about it. Yay, another draft to edit! Problem is I keep getting tasty draft ideas faster than I can edit the ones I have (including all three NaNo projects, now, which still sit in the “Edit The Crap Out Of This” pile.
Anyway, thanks for the fun read–and all the other ones. I love your blog posts, man. Just–not in any hinky kinda way, you know.
– TOSK
December 1, 2014 — 12:43 PM
Jamie says:
Done and done! I wrote 51k in November. And I finished the first draft. However, I like to start slow and pick up speed, so I actually had a first goal of writing 50k in the 16 weeks leading up to NaNoWriMo and the second goal was writing the second 50k during NaNoWriMo. I killed both of those goals!
And now my brain wants to spew lots of vulgar obscenities into this comment field. But I won’t. Because I’m a lady. Okay, I’m sort of a lady. Let’s pretend I am. FUCK YEAH! (ooops.)
December 1, 2014 — 12:50 PM
sarahappifanie says:
32K this year, won last year. I couldn’t believe how many people queried immediately, how agents were already tweeting about flooded inboxes. I’m still working on last year’s NaNo and it isn’t ready yet. (we took some time apart)
December 1, 2014 — 1:14 PM
David Wilson says:
i had a goal to finish my first draft of my 2013 NaNo Project by the first of November. Then take a break from the novel without taking a break from writing. Did a Little side project that was interesting for about 3 weeks and then got back into the second draft of the novel
December 1, 2014 — 1:18 PM
KVeldman says:
I started on the 14th and hit 32K words last night. I call that a win. My novel is looking like it might end up at anywhere between 65K and 80K words. I’m stuck in that middle-area that makes me feel like Frodo trudging through the dead marshes on the way to Mordor. I’m not having trouble powering through, though, because I know a lot will get re-written or hacked to pieces in later drafts. And also because I have some great ideas for the ending that I told myself I can’t write until I fight my way through the middle. Spoiler Alert: There will be demons, ninjas, flamethrowers, legendary swords, guns, explosions and hipsters.
December 1, 2014 — 1:39 PM
melorajohnson says:
Won, yes, finished, no. Still working, for as long as it takes. When I have a full draft, I’ll take a break.
December 1, 2014 — 1:51 PM
MSmith says:
I managed to squeak in with 51711 official words. First year that I finished since 2009. It was hard, especially since I didn’t get to write for the first three days of November, but like every other pen-monkey, I listened to Chuck and just kept writing. I even wrote at work when I had a lot of downtime (shhh, don’t tell the boss).
I’m really digging my novel this time: yakuza, a metal band’s tour, a $20M debt, a Cesare Borgia-wannabe, 8 points of view, and exploding people. It’s been a lot of fun to write. I’m looking forward to what they’re going to do next.
December 1, 2014 — 2:47 PM
Stephen Dunscombe (@cythraul) says:
If I’m considering a novel critique, of the sort Saladin Ahmed offers, at what stage should I do that?
Do I hand them my raw manuscript, hot off the printer?
Do I do a first-pass edit first, to get rid of the embarrassing yes-I-know-it’s-shit-but-FORWARD-MOMENTUM! bits? (I have a non-trivial number of descriptions that read “{FIXME describe castle}”…)
Do I polish it until I’ve taken it as far as *I* can take it, and *then* bring them in?
(I know Mr. Ahmed’s specific solicit says to fire it off right away, but I’d love to get folks’ opinions.)
December 1, 2014 — 2:58 PM
Lisa Oliver says:
I don’t know who this person is that you are referring to, or the service they offer, but my advice would be not to let anyone see your work until you are really happy with it. Polish it until it gleams with a blinding light. You want to be as proud of your work as you would a new born baby – and you don’t let them go out dirty and smudged 🙂 Good luck.
December 1, 2014 — 3:23 PM
Birgit Nazarian says:
I wish they wouldn’t say “won”. I got a novel that I have been thinking of starting started and it’s over 32.000 words in. If that were miles and it was a ultra marathon it would be 50K sooooo that’s what I am going with.
December 1, 2014 — 3:02 PM
Lisa Oliver says:
I finished – I’m thrilled because I got two books done. One has just come back from the beta reader and the other one is with her. With minor tweaks I will get them both published (self) this month. I edit every day as part of my writing process, so my end results were pretty much finished by the end of the challenge (I finished on the 25th). But I agree with Chuck. I have a system and writing is just part of the whole equation. And in the meantime, yes I have started my next book, because a day without writing is just not worth doing 🙂
December 1, 2014 — 3:21 PM
Stephen Dunscombe (@cythraul) says:
And regarding NaNo itself…
I started my current WIP in August. I figured I’d use NaNo as a spur, once it arrived. Turned out November was a middling-at-best month for productivity, and I barely paid attention to the NaNo zeitgeist this year.
But that’s okay. Some things worked, and I learned a few things.
I broke 59K words this morning. I originally targeted 80K for the finished product; right now, it feels like the first draft is going to clock in around 65K words. Which I’m happy with. I haven’t a clue whether that’ll go up or down during editing – it’s my impression most people’s wordcount goes down, but there are aspects that I *know* are woefully underdeveloped, and may want expanding.
But it’s already officially The Longest Thing I’ve Ever Written, and it’s gonna *be* written. Two men from Amity are out in a boat, Sam and Frodo are scaling Mount Doom, and the Rebels are skimming the surface of the Death Star. It’s all downhill from here, and not a long hill at that.
I realised all the ways in which this premise happens to stack the deck in my favour. (Want to easily adjust the length of your story up and down? Put a war between your protagonist and their objective. War is a great big difficulty knob that you can crank up or down without straining believability.)
I realised that, at least in first draft, I shouldn’t worry about the music – just the notes. If I need a setup in scene A, a payoff in scene C, and a Scene B in the middle purely for timing/rhythm purposes? Fuck scene B. Trying to write Scene B, when I have nothing to *say* in Scene B, just hamstrings me.
I realised I might be a pantser. I still ended up making plot notes, but only for knotty bits that have to be worked out just *so*, not for the overall sweep of the story. What I *do* end up noting is something that’s more like a… menu. I have a heading that reads Things What Could Happen, where I jot down things what could happen. When I come to the end of a scene, and the next scene isn’t *immediately obvious*, I go to the Things What Could Happen menu.
Anyway. Things.
December 1, 2014 — 3:34 PM
Dana says:
I knew I loved you, but now it’s been taken to a whole new level.
December 1, 2014 — 3:54 PM
abpenland says:
God damn this is beautiful.
The editing is actually the easy part for me. I’m a seat-of-my-pants writer, but only when I actually force myself to write by the seat of my pants. I can edit and plan my life away on a novel, but when it comes down to it I always end up plunking the characters into the middle of a situation and seeing how they react. They surprise me every single damn time.
Probably going to put up a blog post about the experience later. I loved it. And Chuck, your advice is spot on.
December 1, 2014 — 4:04 PM
Vickie Knob says:
I finished the words, but not the story, which is bothering the crap out of me. I finished early, so I did leave it alone for a week. Now I’m trying to write it to the end, so I can enjoy a little down time.
December 1, 2014 — 5:30 PM
Mike Douton says:
I got about 25k. It was on a manuscript that I estimate will hit 90 and was sitting at 28k when the month started.
That’s not my best month, but isn’t actually that far from it.
I have a toddler though. Who got the 1 – 2 punch of going cold turkey without his binky AND potty training. Anyone doing NaNo with a toddler needs a built in handicap. Like next March or something.
December 1, 2014 — 5:37 PM
clareelizabet says:
My mother managed to share that I had reach 50k over Thanksgiving dinner and everyone was lovely and congratulatory and said “That must have been horrible! At least now you can stop writing for awhile…”
And I just found myself thinking “But NO! Why would I want to do that?? The story isn’t over!”
Best Feeling Ever.
December 1, 2014 — 5:38 PM
Jessica says:
Second year, second time “winning” – this time I dicked around and had to write the last ~35k in 10 days. Not so much the fun times, that.
However! This year the story feels a lot more “complete”, even though both were written with a solid foundation of “so.. okay, this idea will work” that may or may not have been vodka-fueled thoughts on October 30. This may be because last year’s project quickly outgrew a single-book idea and decided to be the first of a trilogy, or maybe because this year’s was a bit more fun.
Either way.
Even though I know that what’s sitting on the flash drive hanging off my keys is just a beta version of a first draft, it’s still one hell of a feeling of accomplishment.
December 1, 2014 — 6:00 PM
Laura says:
I’m always mortified by my first drafts. I can’t imagine sending a NaNo to an agent right away. Yikes. *hides* I envy anyone who has that level of confidence. Or is it desperation? (OK, that was mean, sorry.)
I was going to do NaNo this year but backed out at the last second. I’ll just keep plugging away on stuff for an older wip. Best of luck to everyone else doing NaNo.
December 1, 2014 — 8:37 PM
Rebecca Douglass says:
My plan was to edit the living daylights out of last year’s novel, which has been patiently waiting while I finished two other projects. Yeah, that didn’t work. Finishing the new release took WAY longer than expected, and an editing project I took on for a friend took up the rest. So I’m barely started. The good news is that I think I write better at NaNo speed than over long periods. This novel is looking way closer than most of my first drafts.
December 1, 2014 — 9:07 PM
Silas Payton says:
This was my first attempt at nano. I went in with a goal of 25k and came out with 45k. Very happy with my progress. I dropped another 1200 today and will keep pushing until I’m done this book. I’m thinking another week should do it, then plan to shelf it and go back to do a final edit on one project and then round two on another. Likely will come back to this one in Feb.
Thanks for the great posts. They are a wonderful motivation.
December 2, 2014 — 12:07 AM
Afid says:
This needs to be stapled to the foreheads of every first timer who puts their NaNo entry up for sale on Amazon the following January.
December 2, 2014 — 1:11 AM
saralitchfield says:
I finished NaNo for the 2nd year – and one thing I know from living through the last year, everything you’ve written is Bang On. I published last year’s NaNo novel last month. But first: it got re-written, critiqued, re-written, beta-read, re-written, edited, re-written, copy-edited, polished & proofed. Then it got formatted and proofed again. Then there was the cover art, the cover formatting and the working out of the self-publishing malarky. And then there was the argument with Amazon over the ISBN being taken already by a head-scarf, delaying its release by another month or two. In summary – it. does. indeed. take. time. But it’s worth it 🙂
December 2, 2014 — 1:23 AM
Nellie says:
Normally once NaNo is over, I put it aside to let it ‘rest’ even if it isn’t finished. I’m working on breaking myself out of that habit and am still taking my tablet to work to finish it. I need to get into those better writing habits.
December 2, 2014 — 7:45 AM
Annie Howland says:
I dominated NaNo this year. I “art-ed harder” and won. I ruled the world. It was so good that I kept going. This morning I turned on the computer to find that somehow OH GOD WHY? Scrivener had cremated and scattered to the wind the last ten chapters. My weekend’s worth of work. Just…gone. I ranted, raved, shed tears and contacted customer support. I was depressed. I’d never write again, I said to my bitter cup of coffee. Then I read this post and thought, WTF. This stuff came from my head, right? I’ll just cool down, like Chuck says, and come back. Re-write, edit, get back on track. Like a REAL writer. Like Chuck. New mantra? WWCD? (What would Chuck do?) He’d art harder, that’s what. Hoo-rah!
December 2, 2014 — 9:05 AM
Drew Taylor says:
This was my fourth or fifth time “NaNo”ing. Each of those, I broke the 50k hurdle in stride and kept writing until the novel was actually done. This past November was the 1st NaNoWriMo I stopped partway through. It wasn’t until the 28th when I turned 180, back to that project, and flew forward. I ended with 26k words this month. That’s 26-thousand words I didn’t have 30 days ago, so I won’t be disappointed. I gotta finish that manuscript, though. Cheer me on.
December 2, 2014 — 2:42 PM
Aspen says:
I’m an eight-for-eight Nanowrimo winner. About every other year I go in with no idea, no inspiration, no outline. This was one of those years. All I had was a mildly unpleasant character and my writing group’s Plot Twist Box of DOOOOOOOOOM! Any time I got stuck or bored I’d draw another card.
Every day I’d write my 1700 words and then not think about it for another 22.5 hours.
I “won” on Saturday the 29th, killed off my character (trampled to death by a Zombie Walk/Fun Run populated by women he’d dated then insulted on his blog), validated my word count and stuck my notebook in a box, never again to see the light of day.
Sunday, with time and little to do (all the people I’d normally hang out with were frantically pounding out their own last few thousand words), I opened my calendar of writing prompts and 15 minutes later I had written a new story. It was short, less than 500 words, and unpolished, but it had all its fingers and toes. Beginning, middle, end, protagonist, setting, conflict, resolution.
Huh. *That’s* never happened before. (No. Seriously. It hasn’t.)
See, I’m good at thinking up characters and situations (Bartender in an interdimensional speakeasy! City worker who maintains the municipal feng shui! Ten-year-old and her talking teddy bear in a Munchausian milieu!), but plots and structure have always hard. I can never think of an interesting antagonist, conflict, or response. But there it was, on the page, easy peasy.
Yesterday I did it again. I’ll try again tonight. I wonder how long I can maintain the streak.
This year’s Nanowrimo wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t all that fun, and it wasn’t exactly a swirling maelstrom of creative ecstasy and agony, but I’m pretty sure I leveled up.
December 2, 2014 — 7:50 PM
mikes75 says:
I didn’t do NaNo officially this year, instead using it to finish a draft of something I’ve been churning on for the last couple months, finishing in time for my wife to read while we traveled with family for Thanksgiving (family as your pre-beta readers can be touch and go, but her opinion on putting out unfinished work lines up nicely with Chuck’s; she’d break all my fingers before I could click ‘publish’ on half-assed work). She laughed at the lines I hoped were winners, all while taking ROBUST notes. Meanwhile I’m reflecting on parts I wish I’d included, and turns I should’ve tried instead of the ones I did. So basically, I’m looking forward to bearing down on revisions in the near future, and pretty happy with where it’s at right now.
December 2, 2014 — 7:53 PM
ThePaleSolitude says:
I’ve always been too afraid to write for NaNoWriMo. November comes with deep guilt and nerves, because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but for which have never had the guts. One of these days I’ll get it. x.x
December 3, 2014 — 8:19 AM
Cookie says:
Fantastic advice (and humor!). I “won” NaNo both last year and this year. It has been a great experience and experiment. I don’t feel that either novel is close to being finished at 50k, but you’ve inspired me to keep going with the novel from this year… it’s doing that tickle thing that you talked about (unlike my novel from last year, which I like but have thought of maybe three times since I “finished” it).
December 3, 2014 — 12:40 PM