I won on the 21st, the earliest I've ever completed NaNoWriMo!
However, despite how quickly I was able to write, I'm not completely happy with how the quality of the story turned out. After I won, I decided tot rewrite the entire last third of the story to make it much longer and more exciting. This has required a lot of thinking through the story on my part. I need to make the stakes higher and the goal more satisfying to reach for my characters, and this is more difficult than I expected.
However, doing this has allowed me to learn a lot about writing. I'm used to being really content with stories as I write them, especially toward the end when it all comes together. This year's novel just fell flat. Actually needing to reason through the ending instead of just having it come to me is a new experience, but also a rewarding one.
I always thought of editing as a kind of escape from NaNowrimo -- I can finally delete the bad bits and edit without worrying about changing the word count. This year, however, I realize that NaNoWriMo is an escape of its own: a creative escape, not the structural escape editing provides. During NaNo, I can write with abandon. I can decide that the heroine's mother has the answer, so she must journey home to get assistance. I can kill of characters I would never have dreamed of killing before. Because I only worry about accruing words, I don't need to stress over keeping readers engaged right now. And when the time comes to edit it all down, I will have thought of more plot possibilities than I would have otherwise, each with the potential to lead to a satisfying ending.
This doesn't mean that I've written a ton yet. As you can see from the graph, I've taken a slight break over Thanksgiving weekend. But I've already gotten started on rewriting that last third and it's starting to look more promising. I plan on writing well into December, too.
As for my word count incentives, I've rewarded myself with all of them except for the final one, which is Christmas shopping. I had a bag of popcorn at 25,000 and watched Dreamworks' The Prince of Egypt with my sister at 40,000. I'm also considering buying another album off iTunes to reward myself for the final win. I plan on starting the Christmas shopping this week.
Here are some other things that have happened to me:
- I found a note in a school notebook from October reminding me to "pour a year's worth of inspiration into November." I was really struggling at this point, so it was a great reminder to just let my imagination run wild.
- I went on a four-day trip for Thanksgiving with a four hour long car trip each way. I wrote very little on these drives, opting to do homework instead, because I was kind of sick of writing at this point.
- I completely revised the plot twist toward the end of my novel, replacing it with something more complicated and satisfying. I'm really proud of that part, even though the sections after that disappointed me.
- I listened to a lot of Haydn and Red Velvet. New music helped me reach the finish line, because I always want to write when I'm listening to music I really like.
How has your November gone so far? Have you won yet? Did your plans for your novel change drastically like mine did? Good luck in your writing!
