Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Conquérir (Surviving NaNoWriMo #5)

I won NaNoWriMo.
Not only did I win, but I finished my novel about two days after I actually hit 50k.
The first draft of The Fate Machine clocks in at nearly 57k, which is small for a novel but really good given my track record.
I shall document my experience in .gifs.

When I first heard about NaNoWriMo, my initial reaction was along the lines of, "no stinking way."

"50k words in a month? You're crazy."

However, this period in my life didn't last. As I looked at the breakdown and figured logically, suddenly this task sounded doable. I began to think "There is a chance I can do this!"
So I, brave soul I am, clicked the fateful "sign up" button.
Thus began the madness.

I had to finish my current first draft, along with outlining a brand new one.
The good thing was that I did have a story. I had characters and some semblance of a plot and a goal and main idea. I had all the basic ingredients. I just needed to put them in order.
I am not an organized person. One look at my room will tell you that.
I don't like outlining because it forces me to slow down and put things in order; it constrains my creativity. But it must be done, and so I did it.

I never did complete that outline, but I did come to a point where I felt it was 'good enough'.
I still had a few days until NaNoWriMo, which were spent reading, blogging, and worrying.

When November first rolled around, I was ready.
I was prepared to write and I understood that 1,667 words were a lot, but I really enjoyed myself.

I would get up at 6:15, take a fifteen minute shower, and then write until 8:00. Normally I would also eat breakfast at that time or talk to my daddy, whom I don't see much, so I could get anywhere from 500 to 1000 words at a session like that. I also wrote throughout the day; normally at college or just in my bedroom.

Honestly, NaNoWriMo wasn't that hard.

Yes; I know. It really should have been difficult. I mean, 50k in a month?
But, for me, it wasn't. I never really struggled. I just wrote, I exceeded my goal every single day and hit the goal over a week early. I suppose it's just because I have a lot of free time, but NaNoWriMo never gained an impossible feel to it. I wrote and I wrote everyday. I wrote a lot everyday.
So I beat it. So I won.

A few days later, I finished my entire rough draft. It stopped at an odd point, thanks to the fact that the beginning of my book needs to happen at the end, so the end was really somewhere in the middle... anyway.
The book is, as a rough draft, completed.

Because I was so pumped from NaNo, because I felt like I could do anything, I decided I would straightaway begin editing.

To sum up:
I finished my second rough draft of a book
I won NaNoWriMo
I now embark on the wonderful journey of editing this book and making it worth reading. Expect more posts on my editing process in the days to come.

This officially concludes the "Surviving NaNoWriMo" series, as I am not adding any new words to my book at this point. Look for the "Aftermath" series on book editing to come next!

How has your NaNoWriMo experience been/are you planning on participating next year? Tell me in the comments!







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