Month: November 2016

#NaNoWriMo 2016 – Finally Over

/ mwlange / 1 Comment

Well, I managed to hit 50k words again this year, although it was a bit of a weird month. I did like meeting new people who write in the area, and I think overall it’s been an enjoyable experience. This year’s product is a great start to a new fantasy novel, which I look forward to picking up after I finish revising my upcoming dystopian novel Under A New Sun.

Until then, I’m kind of happy this month is over. Fifty thousand words in one month is doable, but sometimes it felt like I was writing just to write, and not to actually express myself. This is always a big risk when doing the challenge, and I know that some people might look at what they produce and think the product can’t be salvaged. Right now, I feel that way about the first chapter I wrote this month.

The good news is that I’ve also had some good ideas for revising it. Now that I’m into the story itself, I have more options than when I started. That’s certainly a lot better of a position than when I originally drafted it. My words describing its quality hovered in the four-letter range, usually denoting some sort of feces.

Something I’ve been missing is writing short horror stories on my blog here. My goal is to get a few of them up and running. While I don’t write horror novels, I still like scary fiction. It’s a personal weakness/indulgence, depending upon one’s personal point of view. At any rate, I’ve written enough words this month, and I think these might be the last ones I write for November.

Day 1 of #NaNoWriMo

/ mwlange / 3 Comments

This first day was one I didn’t think I would make it through. Yesterday, as I was heading home from meeting with other local Wrimos, I had a tire blowout. In a neighborhood with poor lighting on Halloween, I had to pull off to the side of the road and fix a flat in complete darkness. On top of that, I left my cellphone at home, so I had no way of calling anyone.

It took me about an hour to get the spare on, and by the time I got home I was covered in grease, dirt, and other grime I cannot catalog or classify. All that effort to get a tire off that didn’t want to come off and a tire on that didn’t want to go on had taken all the upbeat spirit I had and crushed it into dust. What remained was exhaustion, but I was still going to start writing at midnight.

The product that came out during that time was not good, and I grew frustrated and deleted most of it. For a lot of wrimos, this is probably three or four of the seven NaNoWriMo deadly sins that one can commit. Personally, I write in fits and spurts, and I like the feeling of getting drawn up into my own story. Take that away, and the joy of writing goes with it.

Determination played a big part in me getting back into the swing of things later today. I kept pecking away until my characters finally revealed themselves, and I got to my personal goal of 2000 words (plus a few extra). All in all, I’m happy that I’m into the book, and I can continue plugging along.

If anyone reading this is doing NaNoWriMo this year, I hope you all are having good luck with your writing. Even if things aren’t going as planned, there’s still plenty of time to figure things out. While getting to 50,000 words might be the brass ring, the journey along the way is also something to be savored.

Because the point of this is to write stories, because stories are a joy to share.