My Writing

So.. I won NaNoWriMo again this year.

I finished three days early – with 50,058 words written this year added to what I wrote last year. Now I need to write the actual final chapters and not just scenes from the climactic ending, but hey – I’m a lot closer to a complete work than last year. Now it’s not a question of if I will ever self-publish, but when.

Last year at this time, I was reading over my novel, and I was really frustrated, because it seemed complete unrealistic. At about the half-way point of the story, I had one of my two main characters do something completely out of character for the way I had written about her up to that point. I did it because I couldn’t think of any other way to get her in the excruciating position she needed to be in so the villain could torment her and drive the rest of the plot. But that false note made all the rest of it seem really hard to believe. It just didn’t read right, and all the following events seemed flat and desperate, like a huge rationalization. I chewed on that for the whole rest of the year and didn’t know what to do. I loved the beginning and loved the characters, but I hated the middle and the end.

This year Garrett Hutson said something at the being of November about plot development along the lines of – “know where your characters are going to go, but to get them there, use a compass, not a map.” That set me thinking – okay, if that plot point seems out of character for my main character, what would she actually do instead? I threw out everything except the end where the characters needed to go, and started writing from just before that false note… and I realized if I changed the villain slightly, and added secondary villain who was working with and also at cross-purposes to the first one, I could get the MC into that excruciating position in a more real way, and then all the dominos started to fall one by one. Now I like the whole story from beginning to end. Even though I threw out 23,000 words I wrote last year and started over, this is a much better story, and one that makes me really happy to read throughout.

I’m in danger, though, of not keeping up with the story now. I hate that the 50,000 word mark was a finish line of sorts, because it’s not done at all, and I still need to keep writing it. It’s good, I think, and original, and interesting, so I need to actually push through and finish.

It was a huge accomplishment that I never thought I could do once, let alone twice. I need to make it work for real. If you could – cattle prod me, please? Bug me about it as much as possible so I don’t get complacent. This was cool, and something that was important to me to do, so I don’t want to let it slide.

I’m validated at 50163 words.

Technically I’m “done” writing my National Novel Writing Month project. Except that I still need to write chapters 12-15 and chapters 2 and 5. But 50163 words makes it “finished” for the purposes of the contest. I’m a winner. I’ve written more than Slaughterhouse Five and The Great Gatsby. Not “better than” just “more than.” 🙂

So here’s the general plan for the rest of this – I’m going to edit/write through December, but put together an outline for another story in that time, too. Then take January to write that story, and edit/rewrite more of this one in February. I hope to keep a daily word count every day, and I’ll track it the way I tracked the word count for this, so I can keep up a daily routine and not get off track.

I’m at 43,506 words. That’s 6,494 words away from “winning.” And I have 4 days. I think it’s a safe bet that I’ll get there, especially since I have all day tomorrow to work on it. I didn’t write at all on Thanksgiving Day, but I wrote in the car both to and from Iowa (not easy at all; it’s very distracting to try to write with cars whoosing by and the bumps in the pavement) and on Friday while everyone went out shopping.

Interesting to try to explain to family members what I was doing. My family is not always supportive of creative endeavors unless they’re attached to work or school requirements, so… yeah. I basically explained it as “I’m in a contest to write a novel in a month, and I’m close to winning, so…” because if you’re trying to win a contest, that’s okay. If you just writing a novel for the sake of writing – a bit on the loony tunes side.

And of course, everyone wanted to know what it was about, and yeah… haven’t even shared that with Stephanie, yet. Too afraid it sucks ass. Actually, I know it sucks ass, at least right now. Hopefully it will not suck ass in the future when I get a chance to re-write it and remove the suck from it, replacing it with less-than-suck, or possibly even with pretty-damn-good if I can figure out where to get that. Chances are you will never get to see this novel. I’m sorry about that. I make no guarantees. I’ll do my best, I promise.

My word count is now 35,521 words. Not quite beating out Ole Yeller on the “famous books word count list.” I’m under par by 1,153 words, but I should have time to get caught up (and hopefully ahead) tomorrow on the road to Iowa for the family Thanksgiving. Stephanie is driving, and I’m planning on writing in the car on a lap desk that I’ve used to write in bed several times. It should work fine. If not, I’ll come up with a new plan. I have 14,479 words left to write, and 9 days left to write them. If I keep averaging as many words as I have, I’ll pass the finish line on time. I’ll have the basics of the plot built, with lots of back story and character development to return and add in during December and January. The whole thing should be well above 50,000 words when I finish.