My first attempt at participating in National Novel Writing Month (November 2016) was both a success and a failure. A success because I wrote over 2oK words of a novel. A failure because it was a novel I wasn’t prepared to write.
I decided to write the third book of my shape-shifter series Grinding Reality, entitled Killer Beans, because a recent reader of the first two book was so excited about it and wanted to know when the third book would be out. I had no answer to that and only a vague idea of what would happen in book three.
But I thought maybe NaNoWriMo would spur my creative juices and force me to write and wah-la, I’d have a 50K rough draft by the end of it.
Unfortunately, I had no plan, no outline and no clear concept for this book. But I started writing it anyway because I’m not entirely certain I had any of those components in place when I began writing the first two books.
I started enthusiastically, taking my laptop to my day job and disciplining myself to write for two hours every day. This lasted for about a week. But I still made myself come home for a few more days and work on it. Until I found myself staring at a blank page without an idea of where to go except to edit what I’d already written.
I attended a write-in with a local writers group and wrote a chapter in two hours. Yippee! But then what happens?
I realized I had only a vague idea and no specifics about the plot.
So I gave up on NaNoWriMo.
I’m not sorry I tried. At least I have a jumping off point for when I pick it back up again. But I wish I’d spent the time on something else I’d already started. If I had, my rough draft for White Roses in Winter would probably be done.
I will post that write-in chapter in a future blogs.
#NaNoWriMo #amwriting #success #failure
