December 1, 2005

Well, it's official! I have passed the 50,000 word deadline by the skin of my nose. And I have to say, I have really enjoyed this writing experience. It forced me to keep going, pushing myself past all the little barriers I like to put up (must check email, must fold the laundry, sink needs scrubbing, maybe I should mop the floors tonight instead...)

I'm certain the prose I punched out isn't fantastic, but frankly, it's a first draft and I think the fact that I was forced to not spend so much time THINKING about my writing made me use the creative side of my brain more often. For example, if you've done any writing, you'll know that occasionally, you'll find that you've just written what you consider a fantastic sentence, or paragraph or what have you. You like it. It's perfect. Well, I'm happy to say that forcing myself to write more steadily/quickly/without pausing for much of anything has not made that "hit rate" go down, in fact, I may have felt I had those experiences slightly more frequently!

The Nanowrimo forums were a great help - I was able to offer advice in my areas of expertise, and also get help in areas I did not have a lot of chance to research. At the end of the month, I found out that there were also local write-ins and such at coffeehouses that I could have attended as well (not that I didn't hang at Starbucks on some evenings anyway).

All in all, I'm really glad I took part in the month-long writing marathon. It was not nearly as difficult as I thought. I was WAY ahead of the average daily word count until I hit the Thanksgiving weekend and I was away from the computer for like 5 days straight cooking, eating, shopping, traveling... So I had a bit of a cram period in the last two days of the month (like almost 12,000 words) but when I reread them after passing 50,000, they really were okay!

Of course, my novel, tentatively titled The Vexing Vixen, isn't exactly finished. I'm going to try to keep up this writing pace until Christmas. I think I have about 30-40k left of the novel and then I'll set it aside for the holidays and edit the draft in the early new year.

I can't wait til next year's NANOWRIMO!