I actually did it. 50,000 words. Well, as of this writing, 50,171. And I still have two days left.
I plan on continuing the story. There is still a bunch left to write. And it's been fun. I want to see how it ends.
I'll probably do a full write-up of the process later, but right now, I'm going to word work (I left the typo in, as I found it amusing) on some website stuff I've been putting off.
NaNoWriMo has progressed a lot better than I had expected, to be frank. I'm halfway through the 50,000 words, sitting at 25,062. A whole day early even. Go me!
It's been a bit of a revelation. During prior attempts at writing stories, I would usually have a basic idea of the story I wanted to write, typically a beginning, a middle, and maybe an end. Not this time, baby. I have been completely reliant on the pantser side of my writing persona and I'm fully embracing it. It literally started with a single sentence: "One thing about the end of the world, Dave thought. It makes for a hell of a weight loss program" That was it. I started my story all based around that one sentence. To tell the truth, it's been a lot more fruitful (and a lot more fun), than I expected. It's both scary and freeing to not know where the hell I'm going. I currently have 7 different characters and I simply write a chapter from each of the points of view. I don't even think I'm writing them in order, and instead will be relying on the excellent Scrivener software to help the organization once my novel is more complete (I'm being positive here and inferring when and not if)
Here's some basic stats, courtesy of my NaNoWriMo Profile Page (have to be a registered member to see this):
That last point seems odd, but I guess it is just an average after all. I do stop and take breaks, or look up synonyms on thesaurus.com, or try to plot out the next section. Even guilty of stopping writing to play a game on my phone. Gotta stop that.
I've also written more than 11,000 words than the last time I attempted NaNoWriMo.
There have been a couple of nights over the past two weeks where I haven't felt as energized to write. But I find if I go over the previous chapter of the character I'm going to write from, then it helps the flow start moving. And once I'm moving, it's easier to get up to speed. It's all about keeping my eye on the end goal for now.
One thousand, nine hundred and fifty one words tonight. It's more real if I type it completely out.
I was worried about not having a completely planned out story. I had a couple of characters and a couple of plot points. But nothing like a linear story line. And then I realized I don't necessarily need a complete story right now. I can write each chapter from a character's point of view, and then shuffle them around later. As an example, last night I wrote what I think will be the prelude or first chapter. Tonight I wrote what would likely be the fourth or fifth chapter. But that's OK. Thanks to Scrivener, I can shuffle things around with ease once I have a better idea of how the story is going to progress. I've never written this way before and it's strangely liberating. I'm just going to write these chapters out as the ideas come. I'll puzzle them all together later.
On a related note, I'm not going to update again until the middle of November at the earliest. I want to focus on the story for NaNoWriMo, and honestly who wants to read a simple "XXXX words today!" update everyday? I can use BlueSky or Mastedon for that.
1,707 words for my first day. Not the rocket launch I'd hoped, but not the failure to launch either. Rather than go with the previous story I had in place, I opted for something completely new to me. No outline, only the basic idea of a structure, pretty bare bones overall. It will be quite the effort to come up with 50,000 words by the end of the month based on what I have in my head so far.
But hey, if it was easy, everyone would do it. Not that I've done it.
Yet.
Having decided to go all-in on NaNoWriMo this year, I hopped onto the website to setup an account to help keep track of my progress, find some support in the community, and maybe even attended a local writing session.
When I signed up with my email, I was a bit surprised to find that my email had already been used. Apparently I've already signed up. Once I recovered my password, I started the process of setting up a new project to keep track of. And wouldn't you know it, the novel I think I'm going to work on is one I setup when I first registered for NaNoWriMo, back in 2016. And it seems that after 13,699 words, I petered out.
I'm hoping my (apparently) second attempt at creating a novel out of this short story -- a story I wrote for a creative writing class waaay back in the early aughts -- makes it further along. Unlike most of the stories I've written, I have an ending in mind for this one, which is tentatively called "Split". There are parts of the original story I'm thinking of keeping, and many many parts that need filling in.
I tend to be more of a "Pantser vs. Plotter" type of writer, but this time around I'm going to setup an outline and see if I can't solidify some of the more important parts of the story and fit them into the timeline. Last year, when I started thinking about doing NaNoWriMo for 2022, I purchased the "NaNoWriMo Writing Bundle"(discontinued), from Humble Bundle. This included quite a few "How-to" books, including "Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success" by K.M. Weiland. I've read about half of the book, and plan on finishing it by this weekend. There were several other books included which give tips on structure and character development as well, which I hope to skim.
While outlining can be accomplished using anything from pen and paper to MS Word/Google Docs, I've opted to use Plottr. As I've stated before, I tend to get myself tangled up in the tools used instead of just creating with what I have. More than a year ago, I purchased Plottr (they were having a wicked sale), and since, have used it sparingly. Less than sparingly actually. So rather than start looking around at other options, I'm forcing myself to use what I have. I have a very capable suite of tools at my disposal (will probably talk about those more in-depth in a later post), so there's no reason to go looking for alternatives. It's just a sublte way of procrastinating. Honestly, I was even looking at acquiring a new Macbook Air to take with me to a coffee shop to write with. The writer in my mind is camped in a cozy corner, drinking something yummy, while banging out his novel on hardware spec'd way above what's needed. I need to focus on the outlining and the writing, not the idealistic version of myself in that coffee shop.
The stupid thing is, I already have a laptop.