Well, it is December 1st, which means National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is over and it’s time for a recap! The highlights:
- I hit my 50k goal for the month on Tuesday, November 23rd.
- I finished the first draft of The Ghost of Zillow Manor at around 10pm last night, November 30th.
- The final word count for my project was just under 62k.
- Now what?
My NaNoWriMo Experience
All in all, I really enjoyed this experience of writing an entire draft of a short novel in a single month. It was a great way to get back into fiction writing after far too long away. Also, let’s be honest, the pandemic has been a drag and personal accomplishments have been few and far between. It feels so nice to complete something that I set out to do, and in fact to exceed my own expectations.
I’d like to take a moment here to shout out my local chapter’s Discord channel, where I found support, encouragement, and fun conversations all month long (and in the lead-up to November). Props to Municipal Liaisons StephanieRidiculous and Nethilia, and Moderator Winter, who all kept things running smoothly.
I’d also like to give a shout-out to editor and writer Charlie Knight, who had almost-daily Twitter threads inviting people to share our wordcounts and daily wins, providing encouragement and also validation for anyone who was struggling or opting out of writing for the month.
I’ve really enjoyed the sense of community I’ve found online during this event, with writers both local and far away.
Another fun aspect of this month was that my spouse was also participating in NaNo. This gave us the opportunity to support each other and workshop our books. CR was especially helpful in figuring out a plot point involving the bad deeds my story’s antagonist had gotten up to. Also, while working full-time and writing 50k, they kept us both fed with nourishing food.
Now What?
Originally, I had expected to still be working on my book. But the first draft is done. So now it goes into a virtual drawer for the next month. In the new year, I’ll do a round of self-edits and then decide if I want to move forward with the project in some more official way, or if I’ll just share it with friends.
In the meantime, I have a lot of blogging to catch up with! I continued to read at a pretty steady pace during NaNo, and there are a few books I’d like to review. It’s also about time to do a “Books I’m Looking Forward to in 2022” post. I’ll wait til the end of the year to do a 2021 best books post, though, because I don’t want to leave out any amazing books I might read in the next month!
I also want to start prepping for my next fiction writing project. I have an epic fantasy novel that I started a couple of years ago, and then stopped when I hit a sticky point. After watching N. K. Jemisin’s MasterClass on world building and writing sci-fi/fantasy, however, I want to make some fundamental changes to my idea, so I’m going back to the drawing board. Depending on how long it takes me to find my way with that project, I may take a detour to another fantasy project I have in mind. Or who knows, maybe I’ll be inspired to write another romance (The Ghost of Zillow Manor is a stand-alone).
After spending so much time at my computer writing and chatting with other writers, I am also looking forward to reducing my screentime a bit and doing some crafting. Especially since fall came in cold and wet in the PNW this year, it’s just so nice to be indoors with a hot beverage and some needlework under my cozy blanket on the couch.
Did You NaNo?
Did you participate in NaNoWriMo? If so, how was your experience? And what do you plan to do next?