IT HAS BEGUN.
Except I haven’t written anything. Yet.
I get the skepticism where NaNoWriMo is concerned. I really do. Because NaNo is about quantity over quality and no one wants to read a book that abandons quality in favor of quantity.
For me, participating in NaNoWriMo has been a great decision. This is my third go around on the NaNo-mobile and each experience has taught me new things about me and my writing process.
My first year, the year that I didn’t win, taught me that it was harder than it sounded to make time for those 1,667 words but that I could do it. And that falling behind isn’t a disaster… but giving up is.
This was also the year I tried SUPER hard to outline. I’m still hopeful that one day things will change, but for now… that NaNoWriMo taught me that I’m a pantser (or, as I recently heard someone refer to it… a “reviser,” which sounds far nicer). Basically this means that my first draft is the largest load of crap ever because it’s a “discovery” draft. The outline boxed me totally into a corner because I grew conflicted: my characters wanted to go one way and the outline another.
So the next year, I tried NaNo using what I called a “throwaway” idea. AKA, an idea I was pretty sure I could write 50,000 words of, but not one that I wanted to “do” anything with. That way, I didn’t feel any pressure about what I was writing. I skipped from scene to scene, I abandoned transitions, and when I thought to myself, “I’m not sure this is believable,” I responded “WHO CARES” and keyboard smashed my way to victory.
And I learned that it was totally possible for me to complete a novel, which was, really, the entire point.
I make a lot of excuses when writing… all about TIME and PROCRASTINATION. The NaNoWriMo method taught me discipline to overcome that… which I must use again now.
This NaNoWriMo, I’m working on adding 50,000 words to my current draft and WiP. I think it will be interesting now that I’ve already done draft 1 and know pretty much what is going to happen.
You can friend me here if you want… best of luck to everyone!
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