NaNo NoMo
Today is December 1st. Which means that yesterday was the last day in November. Which means I get to do this:
I'm a viking!
I found this year pretty difficult, though no year is ever easy (well, maybe 2001 was the easiest - couldn't turn the words off in my first NaNoWriMo attempt). Due to Real Life, plus a heavy dose of procrastination, I found it hard to force myself to put fingers to keyboard and write. With a week to go I needed just a touch under four thousand words a day. Which is kind of scary, though I made it. It also makes for an amusing word count graph:
This is pretty much the opposite of the "write 1,667 words a day, every day" approach. I actually managed to log words on 18 (or thereabouts) of November's 30 days, so I didn't do well on the whole "consistent output" thing. I also didn't get through all of my plot, once again ending on a cliffhanger (something I ended up doing last year as well). I have discovered that when I really need to hammer words out, I just get a couple of characters together and let them talk. I shudder to think of the percentage of this year's effort was just characters talking to each other. Erf.
2008 marked my fifth time attempting NaNoWriMo (2001, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008). I always find it satisfying to make it through, though I am also beginning to wonder if I am getting everything I want out of the journey. I've already climbed the mountain, but I'm starting to think about taking another trail, or using some different equipment, or something else I can shove into this tortured metaphor.
But right now I'm going to enjoy it being over, and try and catch up on all the things I put on hold while I was getting it done. I just have to remember what those things were first.
I'm a viking!
I found this year pretty difficult, though no year is ever easy (well, maybe 2001 was the easiest - couldn't turn the words off in my first NaNoWriMo attempt). Due to Real Life, plus a heavy dose of procrastination, I found it hard to force myself to put fingers to keyboard and write. With a week to go I needed just a touch under four thousand words a day. Which is kind of scary, though I made it. It also makes for an amusing word count graph:
This is pretty much the opposite of the "write 1,667 words a day, every day" approach. I actually managed to log words on 18 (or thereabouts) of November's 30 days, so I didn't do well on the whole "consistent output" thing. I also didn't get through all of my plot, once again ending on a cliffhanger (something I ended up doing last year as well). I have discovered that when I really need to hammer words out, I just get a couple of characters together and let them talk. I shudder to think of the percentage of this year's effort was just characters talking to each other. Erf.
2008 marked my fifth time attempting NaNoWriMo (2001, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008). I always find it satisfying to make it through, though I am also beginning to wonder if I am getting everything I want out of the journey. I've already climbed the mountain, but I'm starting to think about taking another trail, or using some different equipment, or something else I can shove into this tortured metaphor.
But right now I'm going to enjoy it being over, and try and catch up on all the things I put on hold while I was getting it done. I just have to remember what those things were first.