NaNoWriMo: the month every writer fears and has a love-hate relationship with
The National Novel Writing Month is finally over, and writers all over the world have either hit their (50k) word goal, surpassed it or not quite reached it. But congratulations still stand for everyone that participated in this challenge, and chapeau to everyone that made it to the 50k. It takes a lot of patience and discipline, especially to write every day.
NaNoWriMo winner banner
As I mentioned in a previous post, this was the first year I actually decided to participate in the NaNo with serious intent. I decided to continue working on my Camp NaNo 2020 project and try to hit those 50k words with Once Upon the Devil, a new adult action/ mystery novel. If you'd like to read more about it, you can find all the info here.
During the month, I was met with days where I didn't write much or at all, but I always tried to keep up with the word count. In previous years, when I tried to participate in any NaNo challenge, be it Camp or the actual one in November, I always had trouble constantly writing and keeping a god rhythm. I would skip many days one after the other and then would force myself to write and catch up, or even give up because it seemed impossible. This year though, I have to say I did a good job, but I'll let you judge on your own from these two graphs:
Camp NaNoWriMo 2020 - 20k words goal
NaNoWriMo 2022 - 30k words goal
So here you have it, a total of 51'469 words later and the book is still not done. We're only on chapter 11 of probably 20? planned (honestly, I'm not sure about that number anymore, it might be less, might be split into another book, idk), and the story is going really well. I like the pacing and the character's development throughout the chapters. As they alternate between the FMC and MMC POVs, the suspension is kept until the next chapter they appear in, and it's easy to sneak some clues here and there without being too obvious or messing things up.
This is, of course, only the first draft of the story, but I'm having so much fun creating this world that my mind is already wandering to other possibilities as the plot thickens. I can't even count how many AHA moments I've had while writing because there have been so many. Often when I felt stuck, I felt one of those feelings that would make things work and wrap things up nicely, and I believe that's also what saved me multiple times from having writer's block and getting stuck behind.
As the November month is over, I have to say I took one day break from writing and another, I was too tired to do so. I'm on the third, and I have managed to write around 1k words as of now. I've set a goal of 80k words total for the end of December, and by then, the book should be over. I'll try to keep writing daily as I've done in the past month as I enjoyed it a lot, but I also have my private life and uni to keep an eye on too. Hopefully, I will be able to write more after finishing this blog entry and boost that word goal some more. Fingers crossed.
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