The month of November, aka NaNoWrMo, is
over. Despite my ambitions, I didn’t
write a novel. However, I had some successes. My final word total was 25,000. Congratulations me. I have paragraphs and chapters that reached
the page! I call these my daydreams that
made good. I have to also feel pleased
that I kept at it, long after I knew the month long blitz had some major
drawbacks.
For my readers that were also on the
same trajectory, what about you? What
was your final word total? Congratulations. What else? What accomplishments can you claim?
I always consider self-discovery a
success. I tested my belief that I
would find it difficult to give up if I told people my plans. This simple public accountability pushed me
through more days of this month that I dreamt possible. I didn’t want to explain to anyone that I
gave up, but in the end, I found the only person that I really didn’t want to
disappoint was me. I said I would give
this my effort for November and I did.
Problems got in the way; I didn’t have
as much time as I thought I would. I was
unwell for several days. This meant I
had to modify my expectations; I wasn’t going to meet the word goals. Then I became overwhelmed with the very idea
of writing a novel, of handling all the story lines that I had begun. I had to revise my goals again. I would write what I could, perhaps a decent
outline and several chapters; a more realistic goal. I discovered the real challenge; to work
through the problems.
So now I know that I rebel against word
count goals, and forcing myself to produce.
That’s useful information. Also I
have mixed feelings about competing. Plus,
I know that this attempt at a novel never gave me the same buzz that I get from
writing a short story. That doesn’t mean
it was wrong to try. At the end of the
month, I was convinced that novel writing was not for me, but since then I have
come to question other aspects of my experience such as the pace of the
contest. Perhaps I will write a novel in
the future. I’m reserving judgement on
this aspect, while happily returning to a short story project, with no
timeline/deadline at all.
During this past month, I had breakthroughs. I discovered a degree of dedication beyond my
normal levels. I found new pockets of time for writing. I experimented with different approaches to
the page. Part of my preparations for November
involved cue cards with writing prompts both familiar and new. They were very useful. I am sensing other ways to be more successful
in the future. It might be more helpful
to my process to think of story arcs, or character development, instead of word
goals. Creativity is fluid, and while I
can help by writing daily and other writer support habits, I can’t pressure
myself. I do best by approaching my
writing with a sense of curiosity.
Are there story elements that came out
of my November writing that I will take forward? I’d like to think that certain characters are
more real to me and are about to tell me their story, but I don’t know
that. In the meantime, I’m on a
different project. Perhaps some of my
November writing will sneak into it.
So I and you might not have written a
novel this month but this does not mean that the novel-in-a-month experiment
has failed. We write. We learn.
We go on.
A bit of background; I believe in TO DO lists.
I start my day by making a list. TO DO
lists can be wonderful for simple endeavors – laundry is laundry and if it is
on my list then folding the last clean item and putting it in the drawer means
I can cross laundry off my list. Simple. I use my lists for more complex goals as
well. And I monitor how well they
work. And they do work for me. So I doubt that I will swear off them, but I
read on. 
