Lessons From My First NaNoWriMo
Hello reader! Welcome to my first ever blog post!
I’d consider myself an aspiring writer. I’ve always loved to read and tell stories, both real and fictional. I’m still only “aspiring'' because I really haven’t done much with this passion yet. In college I was a contributor for my campus chapter of Her Campus, but this is the only writing I’ve ever put out in the world. About two years ago I started writing poetry as a hobby, and this past year I started writing fiction. My accomplishments so far consist of a bunch of half finished short stories I haven’t shown anyone or even told many people about.
I intended for this all to change when November 1st rolled around. I made the bold decision in mid-october to participate in National Novel Writing Month (also known as NaNoWriMo) with only two busy weeks to prepare. I work best under a deadline, and I figured this would be an excellent way to throw myself into the writing world with just the right amount of pressure to actually finish something. As I write this in early December, my 50,000 word novel sits only a little over half written. The new deadline I have set for myself is December 31st, which hopefully will be feasible even with the approaching holidays. Now that November is over and my original deadline has passed, I want to talk about what went wrong, what went right, and what I wish I had known going into this as a fairly new writer.
What went wrong?
Ok, let’s get all the negativity out of the way first, shall we?
Firstly, I totally underestimated how much time and energy this project would take up. In order to finish a 50,000 word novel in one month you have to write about 1667 words per day to stay on track. On its own this doesn’t seem too bad. Depending on the day it took me 1.5-3 hours of focused writing time to accomplish this. I’m lucky to have this amount of free time on most days. However, I did not take into account that some days I would not have any free time at all. The first weekend of the month I went out of town to visit a friend so I didn’t get any writing done for three days straight. This seemed like a very overwhelming amount to make up so soon in the project, which kind of intimidated me from even making a plan to catch up. Looking back now, a simple calculation tells me that I could have made up the difference with only an extra 200 words per day. There was no need to feel so defeated by the few days I missed. I also fell further behind on days when my energy levels simply did not allow me to spend my free time writing. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I knew this project was going to turn into National Novel Writing Months (plural!) so I didn’t even bother trying to write on days when I was busy visiting with friends and family.
Secondly, I didn’t go into this project with a good enough plan or outline. The story I’m writing is very character driven. I went into writing it with two solid ideas of who my main characters were going to be, a vague plot I wanted them to follow, and not much else. I think this works for writing a character driven story. It sounds corny, but I’m kind of letting my characters write this thing for me. Still, I wish I’d figured out some more details ahead of time and given myself a stronger outline to work with. I think this would have helped my writing process go a lot quicker which is important if you’ve set an ambitious deadline for yourself. Plus, I think it would have helped me write on days when I had less energy if I had known that the hard task of figuring out where the story was going next had already been taken care of.
Lastly, I let my perfectionist tendencies get in the way which also slowed me down quite a bit. I was more worried about writing everything perfectly than getting to the word goal I had set for the day. No one writes anything perfect the first time and it’s better to get down something you can work with and edit later than to not get anything down at all.
Ok, so what went right?
Well, I cannot emphasize this enough but, I WROTE HALF OF MY FIRST NOVEL. Writing is something I have wanted to do more of for a long time now. I finally took a huge leap of faith and really dove into something ambitious and a little intimidating. Even though I didn’t write as much as I originally hoped I don’t want to overlook what I did manage to accomplish.
I learned that writing something longer than a poem or a short story isn’t as intimidating as I once thought. Even still when I read a particularly good book by a particularly skilled author I find myself wondering how they possibly created something so magical. Now that I’m writing a novel of my own, I’m beginning to see how it's possible. It all starts with an idea. Ideas never come fully formed and ready to dazzle but, if you work with the ideas long enough and stay dedicated to their natural evolution they can become something impressive. I am not nearly as talented as my favorite writers but, who is? I’m learning as I go. Good writing requires dedication, time, and lots of editing. Even before I become truly talented I can at least put the other pieces into my work and produce something that’s worth being proud of.
Lastly, writing this has truly been a cathartic experience. My main characters are both young women struggling to find their place in this world. They both grew up feeling a little odd and out of place and one of them still feels that way even as she’s entered adulthood. Their experiences mirror my own in a very intentional way. Writing this piece has been an excellent way for me to work through a lot of my own thoughts and feelings through the eyes of someone a lot like me.
What do I wish I’d known?
I wish I had known all the stuff that I talked about in the first section of this article. I wish I had planned more, both the substance of my story and when I would write it. I also wish I had realized sooner that my perfectionist tendencies were slowing me down and holding me back.
I also wish I realized how much I would learn about myself through this process! Taking on a big project like this makes you stop and reflect on yourself more often than you might normally. Starting to write this book has taught me a lot about how I handle different types of challenges and stressors and how I can personally work around them. This has ultimately been a positive outcome but I wish I knew what was going to be in this emotional Pandora's box before I opened it!
To anyone looking for a sign to go for something big and ambitious they have been putting off for a while, this is it. Start training for that marathon, open that etsy shop, or start writing that book! My experience with NaNoWriMo was ultimately positive even if it wasn’t perfect. I’d been dipping my toes into the world of writing for too long, and I’m glad I just sucked it up and went plunging right into it. It even gave me a topic for another writing project I’d been putting off, my very first blog post.
