December 14, 2009
Though it’s been several weeks now, I still can’t help but miss NaNo. I miss the crazy writing, the word wars and the NaNoisms, especially the NaNoisms I knew were happening as I wrote them but left them anyway. I miss talking to people, giving encouragement and being encouraged. I miss the insanity of it all.
I just… miss NaNo.
December 5, 2009
Because if it were, I would want to be working on my NaNoNovel, when I have a thousand other things that I have to do like the last chapters, essays, and test for my class. Sigh. I wish I could channel the manic energy of NaNo into my schoolwork. That would make it a lot easier.
December 1, 2009
Well, another year of NaNo is over. I have participated in NaNo for two years now and, combined, I have written a total of 337,674 words. My goal for this November was 150k words, and somehow I managed to write 200277 words… Basically I did one NaNo a week for the entire month. Crazy. Now you understand the name of my blog.
For me, December 1st is one of the saddest days. Last night I stayed up until a few minutes after midnight working on something entirely different. Thus, I had the sad opportunity of waving farewell to November. This morning when I woke up, I had a brief, “Oh no, NaNo’s over” moment. I was too tired to realize what that meant.
The thing that brought it all crashing down, however, to the point of such sadness I was threatened by tears (kidding), was when I saw something on my hand (I often write notes to myself on my hand if I remember something just before I go to sleep) so I glanced at it. My stomach squirmed uncomfortably as I realized what it was: not a note to myself, but the very last time I had written the daily wordcount and the total wordcount on my hand to take upstairs to put into my scrapbook. I’ve done that almost every day this month. For me, that was the thing that really got me…. that really told me that NaNo was over.
For those of you who celebrate Christmas… You know how during December you begin to get all excited about it, about the family time and the gift giving and the food and the games… Right now it feels like the day after Christmas, when you’re staring at all the discarded wrappings and bows and realizing that all that hype leading up to a special event that is now over. I’ve been looking forward to NaNo 2009 since around 11pm on November 30th of 2008. It’s been a long time. I worked on an extensive outline all year (that my characters successfully ignored) and have been looking forward to this event with growing glee. Now that it’s over… I’m sad.
But I have some neat things to show for this month of insanity. I have 200k new words that did not exist. One of my earliest characters (one of the first original characters I ever created) now finally has his story. He’s a lot different than he was when I first started writing about him over five years ago; those scenes aren’t even in existence in the new version of the story, though they are hinted at in little nods like my own private jokes. My characters hijacked the story from day one, especially my stubborn MC. I was really surprised at him – he was painted out to be a wimp at first who gradually matured through the story, and yet somehow he had the guts to come up to me, the author, and steal control of the story right out of my hands. Bad MC! Bad! In the wake of this mutiny came two entirely new characters that stole the hearts of my MC and my FMC who were originally supposed to fall in love and be together. Once these two “side” characters (repeat, SIDE characters) were introduced, there was no way I could force my MC and FMC together when they so obviously loved these side characters. ARG! That was one of the most annoying things of the month. Ah well. My characters, and thus me (I guess), are happier when they are in control.
My favorite moment still remains that moment on Day 7, when I wrote over one hundred words in less than a minute to get to 50k. Fastest typing I’ve ever done, and that one hundred words really doesn’t make much sense now that I look at it. It helped, however, that I was in the middle of a dramatic battle scene that needed to be fast paced.
I wrote “The End” as the 150,082nd and 150,083rd words of my 200,277 total. The remaining 50,195 words were part of the same story. How? How could I write 50k words after “The End”? Well, remember that thing I told you about my characters mutinying against me? When that happened the outline without out the window. I let them have free rein. But because they are characters, they obviously couldn’t remember everything they needed to do. Some of the most gaping plot holes in the story are when, for example, a semi-main character’s brother shows up for a chapter and then disappears, never to be heard from again. Or when these special characters who were the pivot that turned the tide of the war in the good guys’ favor, they also disappeared randomly without another mention, not even a “thank you” for going entirely out of their way to help. Sigh.
The 50k extra words were my way of using the last week of NaNo to continue boosting my November word count while doing something useful, i.e., writing a bunch of scenes after “The End” that in “December” (or whenever I edit) I can copy-cut-paste to wherever in the story they should go.
I have so much editing to do in December.
My motto many times during November was “Editing is for December” and that was how I let myself get away with typos, plot holes, and general NaNoisms. Now that it is December, the task of turning this rat’s nest of a first draft into a readable novel is going to be hard work indeed.
But hey – I am entirely up for the challenge. Bring it on.
November 24, 2009
Just had my novel verified on NaNo (a day early!) and now I am an official winner! I looked and I am the 223 official winner of NaNo 2009. I am super excited! I was taking screenshots all over the place (I’m putting my NaNo experiences together into a scrapbook).
I want to know – am I the only one who absolutely LOVES the squirrel on the winner tshirt and certificate?
November 23, 2009
At least, according to the extra last chapter of my NaNoNovel, they are.
To earn the Random Ending Merit Badge sticker for my scrapbook, I tacked on a Chapter Twenty-Eight even though “the end” was after chapter twenty-seven. Chapter twenty-eight is called “What Really Happened” had has a dreamlike sequence of events that make no sense whatsoever. At the end of the chapter I claimed they were all true. BWAHAHAHAHA!
So according to the logic of that chapter, turtles are the bad guys because they are green. Everything that is green is evil. *nod* That’s what happens when you allow anything that comes to mind be the explanation for why something can’t happen. A bit earlier in the chapter the FMC stopped an army all by herself. How? She told them they could not pass, because she was there.
Yeah.
It was the second funnest thing I’ve ever done for NaNo. The first funnest was when I hit 50k during a word war (had more than 100 words left and less than a minute to write – but you should read the full story).
And yes, I am insane. Did you think I named this website on a whim?
November 22, 2009
Reached my goal of 150k words tonight! I’m so excited! I expected to feel happy – I forgot that last year, just like this year, I feel sad too. It was almost heartbreaking to write those last few words of the story. Knowing that it is over.
With a week left of NaNo, I’ll be continuing to write. What exactly? I’ll be adding other scenes to what I’ve already written. There’s conversations and other stuff that I forgot to do as I went through the story, so now’s the time to write them and have them count toward NaNo. So what if there are a few inconsistencies. Editing is for December.
Lots of fun. 
November 22, 2009
I am currently less than 5k words away from my month-long goal of 150k. The next time I write in here, I am a WINNER!
November 17, 2009
Note: I didn’t write this. I’m reposting this from the NaNo forums. Credit goes to wombleomlette on NaNoWriMo.org. (I’m griffin_fire777 over there).
T’was the day before NaNo and through all the lands,
The writers sat waiting, their pens in their hands.
Some of them gathered in cafes and stores -
Some lurked on the ‘net, in spades and in scores.
All of them tense, with one shared source of stress:
It’s just about NaNo and their lives are a mess!
Relatives, jobs, study reaching it’s peak -
Everything’s due by the end of the week!
There’s illness and ailments and laptops are dying,
Professors conspiring, and stern parents sighing.
How will we manage even one single word?
The global lament of the NaNo is heard.
And that’s just the start! There’s also the plot,
about which we know nothing (save that someone gets shot);
the intractable outline, the mutinous lead,
all of these things are a problem indeed!
The thing about NaNo (they are heard to exclaim)
Is it’s too fun to resist, but engenders such pain!
And all of those authors, their minds on their goal
vowed never to stop ’til their novels were whole.
Their plots (or the lack of them) danced in their heads
and as it neared midnight, none took to their beds.
All anxiously sat at their desks, in their chairs,
Wondering if this year, 50k would be theirs…!
by wombleomlette on NaNo
November 15, 2009
Spend six hours and fifteen minutes to write 16249 words in a day for NaNo and see if your brain survives. Go on, I dare you.
November 13, 2009
Last night I had a dream (I was so glad when I woke up!). It was NOT about losing words (I had that dream two nights ago).
In my nightmare… NaNo was over!!
And I had somehow missed the last few weeks!
NNNOOOOO!!!!
Of course, I can laugh about it now, because it was just a dream… but still, in the middle of it, I was so hearbroken that I had somehow managed to do other things in the last few weeks of NaNo and suddenly it was December. Lol.
In my NaNoNightmare of two nights ago, all my favorite lines in my story had been replaced by dull, lifeless lines. When I tried to fix them, they wouldn’t fix! Then the entire story just vanished!!
I think I’m getting too obsessed, for NaNo to enter my dreams two nights in a row.
