Tag: NaNoWriMo

Recently, I completed my first NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month challenge, for those who aren’t familiar).

The general challenge is to write 50,000 words of a novel within the 30 days of November. Many people stick with the 50k, and many choose to set their own goals or standards for the month. As I was going into this attempting to draft my first middle grade novel, I had no intentions of hitting the 50k mark when I set out. My goal was 30k, and even that seemed incredibly daunting to someone who has been writing only picture books up until now— each of those coming in somewhere around the 500 word mark.

30,000 words? Was that even possible at all? Let alone in one month?

But I had a MG idea that had been poking around in my brain for about a month or so, so I figured— why not now? Why not give it a shot? I was comforted by the fact that if I “failed”, I would still be winning if I got any words down on the page at all. Writing is writing, no matter how much or how little.

Throughout the process, I learned a lot about myself, my writing process, and writing in general. But there were 6 main takeaways that really stuck with me.

My competitive nature kicks in even when I have no one to compete against.

Even though I told myself that any amount of words would be winning, once I got started, I became almost obsessed with watching my word count rise on my NaNo landing page. I am not necessarily saying that this is a good or bad thing— it was incredibly motivating, to say the least.

I came out of the gate hot. I had 5k words in the first couple days, 10k words written in my first week. At that point, I could see that 30k was entirely possible, and I started thinking that I could end up with more than that. I began to realize that I could quite possibly finish a rough draft in it’s entirety, seeing as MG is often below 50k anyway.

The funny thing that I never expected, though, was that logging in and seeing that general 50k goal kind of tripped something in my brain. When I typed “The End” on my novel at around 37.5k words, I gave myself a few days off to relax and decompress. But during that time, I couldn’t get 50k out of my brain. I had another MG idea that I had written a very rough outline of at the start of this. So, with that competitive nature drilling the goal of 50k into my brain every day, I decided to dig back in. I had about two weeks left in November, I figured, so why not go for it?

And I did just that. I pushed and pushed— those last 5,000 words were a battle, let me tell you. But my brain wouldn’t rest until I hit 50k. And as soon as I hit about 13k words on my second novel to pass my goal, it felt really, really good. I will also say, though, that once I hit that goalpost, it was almost like my brain shut off. I haven’t touched the second manuscript since.

Novel writing is exhausting.

As someone who has been writing only picture books prior to this, I knew that the idea of writing a novel was daunting. What I didn’t realize was how mentally and physically exhausting it would be to write that much in one month. Not only did I give myself a hardy flare up of carpal tunnel syndrome and epicondylitis from typing so much, but I found myself mentally drained at the end of some days. Sections of my book that were more emotionally charged left me drained as if I lived through them instead of my characters. Sometimes this was a lot to handle. But other times? Reliving that electric rush of a first crush or first kiss? Those days were exhilarating.

A deadline is my best friend.

Could I sit down and write 50k words every single month? Absolutely not. The single factor that kept driving me forward was the “official” deadline of NaNo. I started out with a goal to write at least 1,000 words every single day, and surpassed that goal every day until the second half of the month. I don’t think that in my normal life, I have the physical or mental energy to write that much every single day— weekdays and weekends with no breaks, without a deadline driving me forward. I suppose I thrive under pressure, which, looking back on it, is how I always approached projects in school and work as well. So this was really no surprise.

I need to do what works for me, even if it seems a little backwards.

Do a character study before you being writing, they say. Outline your plot, do your research.

I did none of this. I had a general idea of who each character was and a general idea of the plot/arc. But what I didn’t even think about at first were the intricacies, the sub-plots, how I would get from point A to point B. What I did instead was mini outlines at various points throughout the process. I wrote to a certain point, then would pause and take notes on what would happen if X did Y? What if Z was there instead? I have a notes document that is full of question marks, unfinished statements, and plot ideas. But every time I stopped for a mini-outlining session, I would organically realize where the plot and characters were supposed to go. I never would have come up with these things if I tried to plot it out, chapter by chapter, at the very beginning.

The thing is, detailed plotting ahead of time and massive preparation does work for some people. But I know now that it’s not the only way.

I can do hard things.

This is one of my most valuable takeaways from NaNo. I can do hard things. I can do things that scare me. I can do things that take me so far out of my comfort zone, I might as well be orbiting Mars. And that is something that is more empowering than words can really capture. I never thought I could write a novel before this, and now I have one drafted that I’m incredibly proud of. It still needs a lot of work, but it’s a story that I love with characters that I love even more. This is a huge win, and gives me an enormous amount of motivation to keep going.

Flow is a real thing.

There were days during this process that I wrote 3,000, 5,000, up to 7,000 words in one day or one sitting. And most of the time, I was not slogging though or checking my word count like I often do while writing articles, for example. I found myself getting so into character, so in the zone that I would look up and an hour would have passed suddenly.

My highest word count in one day was over 7000 words, and that was a day where I wrote through a portion of the story that I was so excited to arrive at. Once I started, I went completely into a zone as if I was living through the story myself. That 7k felt like it went by in a flash, when in reality, it took me around 5 hours of work. The only thing I can compare it to is a runner’s high, and it is really, truly incredible.

Overall, I am so glad that I decided to throw myself into NaNo. If I had taken the time to think about it too much, or allowed myself to be too intimidated by my lack of preparation, I wouldn’t be sitting here today with a completed draft. It’s not perfect, by any means, but that’s what the next several months are for. NaNo was just the catalyst, the explosive reaction that laid it all out on the page. The magic will come in revision, and hopefully, this story will turn into one that you can buy on the shelves someday.