Thursday 6 December 2007

'National Novel Writing Month' - The Aftermath

November was 'National Novel Writing Month' (or 'NaNoWriMo'), a month where if you listen really hard you can hear the feverish tapping of keyboards and people cursing when they see their wordcount... The deal was to forget things like editing and just get your ideas onto paper in around 50,000 words. You'd then have a draft novel that you could edit at your leisure (instead of getting stuck on the first page).
Unfortunately for me, I fell short of this target by around, oh... 50,000 words (oh dear...) November went something like this,

November 1st: Come up with a great idea for my novel, take the rest of the day off to celebrate.
November 2nd - 10th: There's a nagging feeling that there's something I should be doing...
November 11th: Remember about 'NaNoWriMo'. Unfortunately it's in the middle of a meeting at work and I've forgotten again by the time I get home.
November 20th: The Blog isn't doing too badly but isn't there something else I'm supposed to be writing?
November 26th: Suddenly realise that I'm faced with writing 10,000 words a day if I'm going to do this thing.
November 29th: Actually, make that 25,000 words a day (eek!)
December 1st: So, when's the next 'NaNoWriMo'?

It looks like 'Bartholemow Cain and the attack of the Spider Vixens from Neptune' is going to remain little more than a made up book title, in my head, for a little longer at least...
That's enough about me, how did you do? Did you finish your novel? Did you get into it so much that you're still writing it? Has your book been snapped up by a publisher in the last six days? Or did you do a 'Graeme' and are sat there gazing jealously at all the people who finished?
Tell me! ;O)

4 comments:

Russell Whitfield said...

I did make a start, but that soon trailed off as work pressures hit. I'm planning on hitting the keyboard over xmas when I'm away on hols.

Russ

Neil Richard said...

It was more like NoWriNoMo for me. I did manage to come up with a great comedic idea for a story, but alas, nothing is written down. Other than the idea. Which is 13 words long.

Chris, The Book Swede said...

I was short by about 27, 300 words :D But at least I got 2,700 words done!

~Chris
The Book Swede

Tia Nevitt said...

I've written novels, but I've never attempted NaNo. My writing pace is about 5000 words a week, tops. And you'd be surprised at how fast you can write a novel at 5000 words a week. I've two since 2005!