For the last twenty-nine days you NaNoWriMo'ers have been at the keyboard working on your novels. Along with the writing you've done, you've probably stared at the monitor, swore under your breath, hit and held down the backspace and delete keys, and maybe head-desked it once or twice. You've given up reading your favorite books, watching your favorite shows on television, playing your newest video games, going shopping, hanging out with friends, putting cool new apps on your smartphone and a bunch of other personal pleasures. You may have missed a meal or four. In the process you've thought a lot of things about yourself, your work and writing in general. Sometimes you've loved this craziness of writing a novel. Sometimes you've hated it more than that bully in high school who made your freshman year a nightmare. But most of you reached your goal, and those of you who didn't gave it your best shot.
It's not the wordcount that matters, you know. Nailing that 50K is great, but what really counts is that you went after it.
If you're taking a break now and need a recharge for your creative batteries, go here to watch and listen to a breathtaking tour of the Medieval and Renaissance galleries at the V&A, one of my favorite museums on the planet (about nine minutes, is narrated in English and has some background music.)
Break over? Okay, you've got one more day to write. Get to it, and good luck.
I put on the biggest effort ever, and wrote 5K on Monday to blast across the 50K mark by that night. Wow, what a rush that was. It felt great to finish NaNo this year, but I think it was more amazing that I pushed myself, and did it. Course, I had to take Tuesday off as my brain was fried, but still, SO worth it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your cheerleading, too. There were a few times I was ready to bail, but honestly, your encouragement posts were very much needed, and helpful.
I made it - 50K words of my first novel in 29 days! Couldn't have done it without you: thank you for being an unofficial torch bearer and plying us with encouraging words and advice during November! You certainly kept my lamp lit more than once this month.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement! I just made it! I didn't come close last year, and it certainly wasn't easy this year, but I toughed through it.
ReplyDeleteI will definitely check out the website, though I am by no means done with the novel. I need to finish the rough draft, and then revise it about 52 times...
Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYour posts really helped to keep me toughing out my daily goal, even when I was behind overall. I just squeaked my way through with an hour to spare on my first official novel length work.
Keep doing all that you do and leading the rest of us by example!