Mabh Savage
Words and the world passing by; how it sings to me; how I clamour back.
Lessons from NaNoWriMo
I rather ambitiously decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. I’ve never done it before. It’s now the end of November and I am nowhere near the 50,000 word target. I guess I’m disappointed, but I definitely have learned a few things. Here goes:
- I cannot take on another book to write while I am in the process of finishing two books on birds and parenting, working as a full-time writer (for goodness’ sake), being a parent, and struggling with health issues – that’s the ADHD talking.
- I can, however, write a decent amount in a month regardless of these challenges. I wrote over 16,000 words of a new novel aimed at kids/young adults, I know exactly where it’s going to go, and have the whole thing plotted out. That’s definitely a win.
- I love the novelty of new writing apps – again, that’s an ADHD thing. I’m currently using a free trial of First Draft Pro and loving it. I’m going to have another go with Scrivener soon, too.
- Making buddies and joining groups is only useful if you actually interact with the people in them. Or, you know, even look at the posts or anything.
- I’m better at dialogue than I thought.
- Fiction is hard – unlike reality, it has to make sense. (Paraphrasing Tom Clancy there!)
- But it’s fun.
- Plan for problems – a sudden virus knocked the whole household out, I had two kids at home alternating weeks, then got sick myself. Over half the month basically unable to write.
- A little every day is more achievable for me than great, long stints. This is the exact opposite of how I write non-fiction, which is in a hyper-focused, teeth-gritted, grim faced, time-exempt bubble of don’t talk to me.
- I will complete this novel. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll submit it for traditional publishing or self publish, but it will exist in a complete format at some point!
That’s a win as far as I’m concerned. Okay, not technically a NaNoWriMo win, but I’m taking it!
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Mabh Savage 