November has ended, and with it the wonderful productive lovely month of NaNoWriMo.
I made it to 50,000 words on Saturday (the 26th) and have spent days since feeling it was December. It’s only Dec. 2nd so really there’s a whole month ahead of me — a month of plotting and planning so I can do my own mini NaNo month in January! That’s right, although I reached 50,032 words, I did not finish Another 3 Minutes. It needs another 10k or so, but first I’d like to spend some time figuring out where I want it to end and what the 3rd book will contain.
Tonight I’m going to my local TGIO (thank goodness it’s over) party with my writing buddies (my sisters) and a friend. My sisters also reached 50k, two of them on the weekend, the youngest with 1 day to spare. For one sister this was her first year actually completing NaNoWriMo.
The supportive NaNo emails have been fun. I especially liked one piece of advice that said, basically, that when you start writing on an idea you have some sort of image associated with that idea. The image invokes a feeling that makes you passionate about the story. Remember that image, it will get you through.
During November I read a book written by a Nano-mouse (still dunno why mouse) last NaNoWriMo, called A Long, Long Sleep. (I liked it.) While this apparently can happen, for most of us our NaNo novel is merely a step along the way of learning how to write. Merely writing the words and completing a story teaches you a lot. My first book, which I suppose might be The Rabbit Family (depending on what I consider a book), is terrible. It makes ME laugh, and I have fond memories, but I know it’s a failure as literature and I’d never let it be published… as is, anyway. However, I’d like to think I’ve improved, that I have learned through every thousand of words. NaNoWriMo especially has helped me sit down and get to work, and it proves that I should be able to find the time to write during the other 11 months of the year. As Sanderson pointed out in his pep talk (I think it was his, anyway, and I’m in the midst of rambling so I won’t bother to check), if you write a thousand words a week, that’s a novel by the end of the year. (The goal of NaNo is 1,666 words a day, or 2,000 if you like to get ahead.)
Since I still don’t know my audience for this blog — I’m the only reader — I have let myself ramble-away. Poor performance for a would-be author, but sometimes the words just have to flow. And I’m still in NaNo mode, a rule of which says ‘keep on going it doesn’t matter if it’s rotten bananas just keep pounding on the keys and don’t ever press delete!!’
Mm. Bananas. Fruit smoothie. Coffee. Coffeeeee…..
Congrats to all the winning NaNo mice!
Hugs and cheers,
~Myra
Myra Karine & Her Blog 