As mentioned in my Blogger Jealously post, I took part in NaNoWriMo last November. It was a last minute thing and no, I didn’t reach the 50,000 word mark. I was debating whether to write anything at all, whether to carry on with the book I started or start a complete new one and by the time I actually decided an entire week went by!
With one week gone I wasn’t sure I would make 50,000 or anything even close to it but I started anyway. I put a stop to my social life to attempt to write every evening because I work full time Monday to Friday.
It started off going well, I managed to write around 2000-2500 words on days where I was at work and did nothing in the evenings which made up for the two nights I went to the gym and only wrote between 800-1000. In my first two days I wrote nearly 6000 which I felt was an achievement in itself.
I found it to be a real difficult experience for me and suffered quite a bit during my second week. I ended up deciding to write a completely new novel from scratch and I had lots of ideas in the bank. I also thought taking a break from my first one could be a real benefit for my mental health.
When my second week hit, most NaNoWrimers third, I just couldn’t get the words out. I didn’t know where my story was going or if I even thought it could be a story. At 28,000 words I was ready to give up. I spoke to a few friends around that time and took a couple of days off to just relax in bed watching TV.
While I wouldn’t recommend taking too long of a break like I did, breaks are necessary for your sanity. I was thinking about killing off all my characters and just ending it calling it a short story but taking a break really helped me calm my mind, stop stressing and along with encouragement from my friends I managed another 4000 words before I gave up completely.
I just didn’t feel that I was able to write 18,000 words in 5 days and so I just stopped aiming for the 50,000 mark and just continued writing at a pace I was happy with. I tend to write between 500-1000 words every time I open up my document to write some more and my editorial side is firmly locked away because there is nothing available for me to edit.
I am proud of myself for starting a completely new story and reaching 32,000 words in two weeks when my first novel is far from finished, I’ve been working on it on and off for a year and I am only at 56,000 words. Not that the word count on that one matters either!
I find it easier to work without deadlines because then there is no need to stress myself out over anything and I can enjoy the story the way I want to rather than having it eat away at my mental health because I just NEED to get it written down.
NaNo is definitely a good experience and a good way to get stories started but I think to be an author you need to be able to de-stress and release yourself from the worlds you create. I’ll definitely be using NaNo for the sole purpose of getting my stories started but I don’t feel like there is any need to reach the target work count any more.
Did you take part in NaNoWriMo this year?
Let me know how you got on!
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