25.11.09

My NaNoWriMo.

I've been plugging away at my NaNoWriMo, writing my novel in just one month. By this, I mean I've written almost 50,000 words in November.

At first, writing was easy. With the help of my outline, I wrote, and I wrote some more. But last week, writing was more difficult. My outline didn’t make sense anymore.

I think I made a wrong turn. Then I lost the map. I might be in Nebraska.

Anyway, I'm almost finished with NaNoWriMo. 50,000 words isn't a novel (unless I just wrote The Great Gatsby). But it’s a start. For the truly interested, you can check my progress here.

7 comments:

A Good Moroccan said...

Congratulations on the progress you've made....writing can be a real challenge.

From AA to NZ said...

Life doesn't always follow the outline either.... I hate when that happens!

injaynesworld said...

I bow to your awesomeness in accepting such a challenge. Sometimes, when you get bogged down with an outline it can mean you're superimposing yourself too much on the characters. When this would happen to me, I'd just put a blank sheet of paper into the typewriter (because yes, I am that freakin' old) and start asking the characters questions about the story and then just typing whatever came into my head. They can be pretty chatty when you let them. But they also all have big egos and want to be the star of the story, so you kind of have to reign them in. Good luck and mostly, have fun. - Jayne

Juli said...

Jayne, thank you for your lovely comment. You're right. I am superimposing myself too much on my characters. But I'm still having fun!

For a first draft, I often use the blank paper method (my outline was very loose). Also FWIW, you're not old. When I was in college, I typed my papers on a typewriter.

Ann Imig said...

That is many many hours of work. Congrats!

Juli said...

Thanks, Ann! The surprising thing is that it only took an hour a day (I wrote 1,600 words per day).

I didn't worry about the quality of the writing, and it was satisfying to make steady progress.

Lola Sharp said...

Congrats fellow NanoWinner!

Now we must challenge ourselves to the 100,000 mark.

Love,
Lola