nanowrimo debrief
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Since this is a debrief, I'll try to be brief (heh heh heh). NaNoWriMo was a lot of fun, even if I didn't win (and no, in case you've missed my NaNo posts throughout the month, as predicted, I did not hit that 50k mark before the month was through).
Here's what I did manage: 33, 415 words.
My goal was 30-32k, which is half of my ultimate word count goal for Skin Deep, the novel I've been working on. So first off, yay! I made my personal goal!
Here's how my month looks in chart form:
There are definitely some plateaus, especially at the end. I had a very busy November 29th and 30th and managed zero words as the clock counted down. But I'm okay with that. I hit my personal goal earlier in the week and everything I wrote after that was just icing on the word-cake.
I feel very accomplished, even though I didn't "win" NaNo. I know I wasn't giving it my all, so to have written half a book (that I'm thrilled with so far!) in a month, without pushing myself too much, feels pretty damn good. I'm very happy with what I've written and even happier with where it's going.
So then what happens now? While some people will spend December revising, I will spend it continuing to write, though I can tell you right now, I'll be putting even less effort into it. It's not that I'm not excited about the book or don't care to finish it. Quite the opposite is true. The issue is that I'm entering my last month of mat leave, which just happens to also be one of the busiest months of the year anyway. I have a big list of non-writing things I'd like to accomplish this month and those will be stealing the focus away for a while (bathroom reno, anyone??). That said, I will keep writing when I can, when I have those moments when I just have to write. I think I'll manage to carve out another good chunk (maybe even another 25%) of the book before the new year, but I'm not going to let it rule my time at this point. It just doesn't make sense with everything else that's going on. Come January, I'm sure I'll dive right back into those lunch-hour writing sessions I plowed through before I went on mat leave, when I was still working on Unnatural. And hopefully it won't be long before I'm revising. I'm not worried. In fact, NaNo pushed me to get going on a book I'm now rather excited about. Word count aside, I'm feeling pretty victorious :)
How did NaNoWriMo 2012 go for you? Did you make it to 50k? Are you going to keep writing? A post on the revision process is coming your way in the near future so stay tuned!
Here's what I did manage: 33, 415 words.
My goal was 30-32k, which is half of my ultimate word count goal for Skin Deep, the novel I've been working on. So first off, yay! I made my personal goal!
Here's how my month looks in chart form:
There are definitely some plateaus, especially at the end. I had a very busy November 29th and 30th and managed zero words as the clock counted down. But I'm okay with that. I hit my personal goal earlier in the week and everything I wrote after that was just icing on the word-cake.
I feel very accomplished, even though I didn't "win" NaNo. I know I wasn't giving it my all, so to have written half a book (that I'm thrilled with so far!) in a month, without pushing myself too much, feels pretty damn good. I'm very happy with what I've written and even happier with where it's going.
So then what happens now? While some people will spend December revising, I will spend it continuing to write, though I can tell you right now, I'll be putting even less effort into it. It's not that I'm not excited about the book or don't care to finish it. Quite the opposite is true. The issue is that I'm entering my last month of mat leave, which just happens to also be one of the busiest months of the year anyway. I have a big list of non-writing things I'd like to accomplish this month and those will be stealing the focus away for a while (bathroom reno, anyone??). That said, I will keep writing when I can, when I have those moments when I just have to write. I think I'll manage to carve out another good chunk (maybe even another 25%) of the book before the new year, but I'm not going to let it rule my time at this point. It just doesn't make sense with everything else that's going on. Come January, I'm sure I'll dive right back into those lunch-hour writing sessions I plowed through before I went on mat leave, when I was still working on Unnatural. And hopefully it won't be long before I'm revising. I'm not worried. In fact, NaNo pushed me to get going on a book I'm now rather excited about. Word count aside, I'm feeling pretty victorious :)
How did NaNoWriMo 2012 go for you? Did you make it to 50k? Are you going to keep writing? A post on the revision process is coming your way in the near future so stay tuned!
