Good day everyone!
I'm sure most of my readers haven't heard of NaNoWriMo, which is a month long challenge to write 50,000 words. That's the size of a short novel in one month. I wanted to give a quick overview of what went down on my end and how far I got. I'm using simplified numbers for easy reading. Here's my NaNoWriMo review.
October was the time to plan my story, and I partook in the Campfire Discord server's "Preptober" activities. I'm genuinely grateful to the community manager Emory for sharing her story planning process with us. Obviously it's not going to work everyone, and it certainly didn't, but I never used to plan out my longer stories, and if I wanted to get through 50,000 words in one month, I needed a plan. I'm currently using what parts of the process work well for me to plan more of my writing for Gemlord, and it's making my life so much easier.
The planning process did take most of the month, but that was partially the fault of college, since I didn't have a ton of time to sit down and plan. Even then, I was able to get a skeletal outline in place. Emory uses a A-Z chapter outline system which outlines the events in each chapter, (even if that chapter only needs to be one scene.) And that saved me later on, as I'll explain.
The first week of November I discovered through NaNoWriMo's website that a meet up was happening at my local library, which is only five minutes down the road for me. And if I hadn't been reminded of what my library offered, I don't know if I would have made 50,000. The meeting was small, we only had four people besides myself, but the connection was amazing. I went back every week because getting out of the house was really good for my creative battery and social battery. It also gave me an excuse to drive. My lowest word count for a day is 0, because I forgot to retroactively mark when I had done my writing. I was out at an arts and crafts show on November 4th, and didn't really get to my computer until 11:30, and finished writing at midnight. I had just over 5,000 words in the first week, which is four days.
The second week I went to the library for the first time on Monday, and remembered the study rooms. I went back on Wednesday because I wanted to try writing not at my desk, but the library itself was too loud, since it's not a quiet library. I still got some work done that day, and realized that I needed to be at the library more. I had 17,800 words by the end of the second week, which is really good for having written for 11 days. On average it'd get about 1,781 words a day, which is the recommended word count. But most days it was just 1,000 words.
The third week is where I really picked up, since I wrote 6,500 words at the library on the 15th. I picked up the habit of writing at the library on Wednesdays, and this time I went into the study room. Being in the study room for four hours was what really opened the doors for me to get the creative juices flowing, and I can't complain about that. I plan to spend most of my Wednesday afternoons in the study room, and go to pub trivia afterwards. It's a nice way to relax after focusing so heavily on writing. I'm so happy I was able to pick a new, healthy routine, which is what I was hoping to gain from this experience. I needed a way to keep writing, since I won't be in school until Fall 2024. By the end of the third week I had 33,000 words, and I was ahead by 3,000 words.
The fourth week I managed to stay ahead, but only because I had library time. For three days I only added 100 words because school was starting to get very busy. I could feel the stress setting in, since even though by the end of the week I was 3,000 words ahead at 44,000 words, I knew I'd have a busy school week. I was also started to get really burnt out- this is where Emory's outline helped out. I was able to remember what I was writing so I could keep writing, and keep moving. This kept me from feeling like I'd failed, because I had a goal to keep up with. I had something to nudge me forward, which is what I really needed to keep me on pace. Knowing where I was going was extremely helpful.
And finally, the 5th week. I had to push very hard because only added a few words from November 26th to November 27th. But on the 29th I worked very hard to write at the library. I wrote 5,800 words that day, and went from 44,000 words to 50,000! In the end, I had 53,000 words and an almost complete novel draft. I still need to finish, I'm hoping no more than 5,000 words to complete the full draft, which is very excited. I'm slowly picking at it since school is really picking up, and I need a break from my NaNo project.
Still, I'm hoping to publish the story on Campfire's reading platform, which is somewhat self publishing, but because Campfire is also built for storing writing information like character profiles, items, locations, and other things, that will be available with the story. This isn't a guarantee, but I'm working towards it!
This is just a shorter post since I'm busy with school and final projects, but I'm really glad I tried NaNoWriMo this year, it was well worth it!
Have a great week everyone,
-Rosetta 💖
(Image By Amador Loureiro)