Things Learned From NaNoWriMo
A final NaNo update…
Only got to about 20K words this year, at which point I ran off into some character development and sketching of story locations which I felt were more important than trying to fudge those things.
Writing is never the hard part for me — I finished my first time last year pretty easily. The hard part is getting what I want out of that writing, and fulfilling my intentions.
To me, in any creative act I pursue, intention is the most important thing. “What is it I am trying to do?” I always ask myself. Along with other questions like, “What am I getting out of this?”
The 2006 NaNo is hardly a loss for what it allowed me to discover; I needed more characters, and not just placeholders. I needed real, well thought out characters that can achieve their potential in the story. I also need maps of my locations, because I’m working in a sci-fi universe, and without those details established, at least for me as the writer, then I don’t really know what I’m doing.
For example, if a battle takes place on the outskirts of one of my sci-fi towns, how far are the people from their homes or ‘living quarters’ as they fight? What are the distances? What is in between them and their homes? Are there any community or business sites nearby? What are the logistics? For me this brings a whole new meaning to the adage “Write what you know.” It turned out I knew a lot less than I thought I did, enough to cripple the drafting process for me.
How has NaNo played out for you? Whether you finished or not, what have you learned?
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December 4th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
I got 27,000 words done, some sort of record for me. What I got out of NaNo was letting go of the tinkering. I just blundered ahead. I’ve made tons of mistakes, but they’re fixable, and I feel like I can let them go more easily because I didn’t futz around so much.
I’m definitely trying it again.
December 5th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
Ahh…
Riiiight.
NaNo. I knew I forgot something!
What I learned this year: my husband and I can’t actively create at the same time, while in the same house. Also, I can’t work after everybody in the house is up and about, if I have to work at home. And I learned that I need about a month between projects. Time to renew my brain, to drop the voice used in the previous book, to read and reorganize my life…
After two major restarts, I ended up on a different project, about 3k words in. But it’s far from a failure, because I like the voice, and my first chapter is exactly the way I want it. I need to get back in the habit of writing every day.
Sounds like we all need a NaNo redo in January!
December 5th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
I finished.
I learned I need to make much better outlines before I start something like this.
I also learned that I can write 50k consistently. Writing a real novel-length novel (80-100k) is a lot harder.
December 6th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
As it turns out, NaNo taught me a lot more than how to pound out 50,000 words (which I didn’t learn, actually).
December 6th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
It’s okay Neinke. I learned how to pound out 50K words last year, and it amounted to exactly that–50k words but not a story I was happy with.
So right now I’m struggling to figure out how I can get what I want without getting stuck in analysis paralysis, endless perfectionism, and all that junk.
Anyone who is feeling this… I feel your pain. :)