Oops, I Did It Again
I won NaNoWriMo, and this year I finished early. I finished with 50,059 words. I’m only at the mid-point of my novel, however. I have another 50K word goal. I’ll take a few days to a week off first.
I won NaNoWriMo, and this year I finished early. I finished with 50,059 words. I’m only at the mid-point of my novel, however. I have another 50K word goal. I’ll take a few days to a week off first.
I need a break from structured writing. For me, it’s intense and tiring. I’ll enjoy the holiday here (Thanksgiving) and do some free-writing while I let my story sit and marinate.
Something else that was different about this NaNoWriMo was that I wrote only using writing sprints. I’d never done that before, and sprinting definitely helped me stay motivated and, as a result, produce more words. My sprints ranged from 5 to 20 minutes (no longer), and I averaged 5 sprints per day. If you do the math, that’s 1:40 hours per day. That may not seem like a lot, but for me using sprints is more intense than my normal sessions. Now, I also know I could probably double my output by doubling the number of sprints I did. If you are wondering, I was averaging around 1300 words per hour and in one particular sprint I hit 5000. I didn’t know I had that in me until I started tracking sprints in my app.
As far as the story goes, I’m pleased with the first half of the first draft. It definitely reads a mystery with some action breaks. I want to make the second half read more like an action/suspense story with some mystery breaks. The bad news is my characters seem flat to me. I will fix this in the rewrites and edits.
If you are still working on your novels, keep writing. Even if you get stuck or frustrated, keep writing. Every… word… adds… to… your… story…
Here is a chart of my sprints per day.
And one of words per hour per sprint.
Enjoy the holiday. I’m thankful I made it through another NaNoWriMo.
Word up!