Links and the Last of the NaNo Talk

Let me first get this out of the way: such self-centered blogging is really not something I plan to do in the future. There are without question an infinite number of better, smarter, cooler things I could write about that would be more interesting than what I did this month. But, I want to try and briefly explain my thoughts about my NaNoWriMo experience as a way to bookend the thoughts I shared here at the beginning of the month.

Stroll on over to the sites linked above* for something else if you aren’t interested in the NaNo talk. But watch this while you’re here:

For those interested in the novel talk, now that the dust has settled a bit, here are my current thoughts on some of the questions people have asked.

Why?

First, clearly doing NaNoWriMo is not for everyone. That much has been made quite clear to me in during the past few weeks as I’ve discussed the project with friends and family. When you tell someone you are trying to write a 50,000 word novel in less than 30 days, reactions are a mix between some mild curiosity and confused, blank stares. As cliché as it is to say, some folks just don’t “get it”. And that shouldn’t be surprising. Not everyone enjoys writing and even the ones that do might not find anything fun about writing as much in such a short amount of time. But for those that do find it a weird and interesting challenge, it is a hell of a good time.

So, how did it go?

Overall, I’d say my experience was pretty typical. There were times that I was so excited about my story and couldn’t type fast enough to keep up with all the great ideas for ways to twist the plot. And there were also times where I hated it and would curse myself for not having done good enough preparation or taking on a subject matter that was potentially over my head.

How slow can you go?

I didn’t manage to keep to the schedule of writing 1,667 words per day. I started slow and was a little behind for the entire month. Weeks One and Two were pretty lack luster. At the halfway point, I had just fewer than 22,000 words. Week three was kind of a wash, as well. Thanksgiving and the Friday LSU/Arkansas game and Saturday KU/Mizzou games had my attention for the last weekend of the month and I didn’t type a single word.

On the last Sunday, November 25th, I decided I wasn’t going to finish. I had 31k words, averaging 1240 words per day and was pretty happy that I had managed to write as much as I had. At 31k words, what I had already completed was the longest piece of fiction I had ever written. But on Monday, I thought back to an email I had sent out to all of my friends at the start of the month.

The inspiration email:

I knew that if I was going to be successful at this, I would need some good encouragement, so at the start of the month, I wrote to my friends telling them of my plan to write a novel. I wanted them to know since I was probably going to miss a few social events, plus, I wanted their encouragement and also asked that they promise to ridicule me if I didn’t make it to 50k. Realizing that my great friends would definitely take me up on the offer once they found out I had given up, I sat back down with the laptop and started writing again.

Between Tuesday and Friday, I wrote 20k words, reaching 49k late on Thursday, November 29th and 50,017 on Friday afternoon, with an incredible 8 hours remaining before the deadline.

It was intense, but without having read any of it, I think some of that eleventh hour writing was my best writing of the month, though some is without question some of the worst, as well.

Next steps?

The story is not fully written. I just got to the 50k word goal, hit save and walked away.
My plan now is to rest my wrists and brain for a few weeks, then go back and read what I’ve got. People are shocked when I say I haven’t read a single page, but I haven’t. So it’ll be interesting to go back and see how it looks in a month. I’ll do some editing and spell checking, first. Then I’ll find time to continue adding to it and finishing the scenes I didn’t write and eventually try to get it published, with self-publishing as the likely B plan.

Will I do it again?

I think so. It’ll depend how things look next year with work and life, but it was a great way to challenge myself and I don’t foresee that ever getting old. Plus, there are other stories already bouncing around and now that I know it is doable, it will be hard not to do it.

Would I recommend it to others?

Yes. Well, sort of. If you have even the slightest feeling that you could write a novel or have a good story that you need to get out of your head or off your chest, then you have to give it a shot. If you hate writing, then don’t do it. There’s no sense in putting yourself through something you have no chance of enjoying. But, I think for those that don’t want to write, the thing I would reiterate is the fun and rewarding nature of taking on a challenge that is so ridiculously big, that even an utter failure would be a victory. And by that I mean, even had I only written 10,000 words while attempting to write 50,000, that would still be 10,000 words I wouldn’t have written otherwise and for me, even 10,000 words would be the longest thing I had single-handedly written. So let’s say you are 90 pounds overweight and for a crazy challenge make it a goal to run a marathon. Chances are you won’t actually finish the marathon or even get registered to participate, but if during your training you lose 20 pounds and get healthier, you are better off than not trying at all. So the lesson I’m taking away from all this is to try huge and ridiculous things and enjoy the results, even if you don’t succeed. I really didn’t think I was going to finish, to be honest, but I knew from day one that I was glad I was trying. And now that it is over and I actually won, well, again, I’m just thrilled I even tried.

*If you were wondering, all the links were things I had on my ‘link blog’ via Google Reader. If you liked my selections and want to keep an eye on what I’m digging, here’s the link.