NaNoWriMo 2021 - Day 12 - Winner
I won NaNoWriMo this past Friday, by crossing the 50K word mark. I made it with 50,007.
Although I’ve hit the 50K goal, I’m still not done with the story or my personal goal of 75K words by the 20th of the month. I am, however, on track. The writing has come easily this year. I was expecting to struggle with the story and having to write over 3,700 words each day. I normally have problems hitting the 1,667 normal word count during NaNoWriMo. I managed over 4K words each day.
I wrote in sprints of 20 minutes, each with varying length breaks in between to let me take care of things around the house, run errands, etc. This approach allowed me to focus (more or less) on my writing while allowing me time to take mental breaks to work through plot points. I’m writing this story at home, for the most part. I’ve also been writing on those occasions when I go out for lunch. I prefer to write in restaurants or bars while I eat. The ambient noise, conversations and people I can incorporate, produce ideas either for what I’m writing then or may write in the future. This month, I had more than one person come up and ask me what I was doing. This rarely happens. Most times, people will leave me alone, probably thinking I look busy and don’t want to be interrupted. So, yes, my lunchtime sprints weren’t as productive as normal.
I’m writing a time-travel story with aspects of a mystery. I had the kernel of a plot idea and some very basic character ideas before I started. I also had the first line. Diving into writing was slow for the first several sprints, but then I got into the flow of the story and creating words and my output grew. Several sprints later, the characters came alive and the story really took off. My characters solved some technical/mechanical issues I’d been struggling with and I had an, “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that [before]!”, moment. The plot has taken multiple turns I had neither planned nor expected. The story is fun to write, and I hope will be fun to read.
Being a time-travel story, I had a long argument with myself about how historically accurate and detailed some of my scenes had to be. I decided I need just enough historical detail and facts to make the story work, provide time and location flavor, and maintain the reader’s interest. I decided against providing a lot of detail because I’m not writing historical fiction per se, and I wasn’t writing a history lecture. I’m certain some people will find issues with the accuracy of the historical content, but I’m writing fiction (with the emphasis on fiction). It doesn’t have to be accurate. Likewise, I didn’t want to fall down a research rabbit hole, although that would be fun given some of my settings.
Something hit me while I was writing. I realized I like to write ensemble stories. That is, I tend not to have a single main character. Most of my books have a story centered on a group of people working as a team. Each of the team members projects an aspect of a single character, and the team is the main character. Until something happens which forces one of the team members to assert themselves as a whole complete character. That’s how I write. That’s how this story is shaping up as well.
The structure of this story differs from the others I’ve written. I’ve written stories with alternating points of view. This book is written with many. Each of my main characters has a point of view. The points of view change rapidly and often. The story develops through the shifting points of view. That’s just how I ended up writing the story; I didn’t plan it this way. For a time, I thought this might confuse the reader, but now I don’t think it will distract or be a problem.
I also had to work out how to deal with my characters across time. I won’t explain why this is an issue, since it would give away some of the plot. This was/is more problematic, but I should have a solution by the time I’m done.
I didn’t have a major conflict when I firsts started. I didn’t even have an antagonist. He appeared in one of the initial scenes and has grown and developed into a nice anti-villain. In some ways, he’s more well-developed than my ensemble characters.
I took the weekend off, and I’ll dive in to the final 25K words starting tomorrow. It’s been a fun ride. Now I have to tie up all the loose ends and work out the details of the final conflict.
Finally, I'll leave you with some graphs from my writing app.
Word up!
I wrote in sprints of 20 minutes, each with varying length breaks in between to let me take care of things around the house, run errands, etc. This approach allowed me to focus (more or less) on my writing while allowing me time to take mental breaks to work through plot points. I’m writing this story at home, for the most part. I’ve also been writing on those occasions when I go out for lunch. I prefer to write in restaurants or bars while I eat. The ambient noise, conversations and people I can incorporate, produce ideas either for what I’m writing then or may write in the future. This month, I had more than one person come up and ask me what I was doing. This rarely happens. Most times, people will leave me alone, probably thinking I look busy and don’t want to be interrupted. So, yes, my lunchtime sprints weren’t as productive as normal.
I’m writing a time-travel story with aspects of a mystery. I had the kernel of a plot idea and some very basic character ideas before I started. I also had the first line. Diving into writing was slow for the first several sprints, but then I got into the flow of the story and creating words and my output grew. Several sprints later, the characters came alive and the story really took off. My characters solved some technical/mechanical issues I’d been struggling with and I had an, “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that [before]!”, moment. The plot has taken multiple turns I had neither planned nor expected. The story is fun to write, and I hope will be fun to read.
Being a time-travel story, I had a long argument with myself about how historically accurate and detailed some of my scenes had to be. I decided I need just enough historical detail and facts to make the story work, provide time and location flavor, and maintain the reader’s interest. I decided against providing a lot of detail because I’m not writing historical fiction per se, and I wasn’t writing a history lecture. I’m certain some people will find issues with the accuracy of the historical content, but I’m writing fiction (with the emphasis on fiction). It doesn’t have to be accurate. Likewise, I didn’t want to fall down a research rabbit hole, although that would be fun given some of my settings.
Something hit me while I was writing. I realized I like to write ensemble stories. That is, I tend not to have a single main character. Most of my books have a story centered on a group of people working as a team. Each of the team members projects an aspect of a single character, and the team is the main character. Until something happens which forces one of the team members to assert themselves as a whole complete character. That’s how I write. That’s how this story is shaping up as well.
The structure of this story differs from the others I’ve written. I’ve written stories with alternating points of view. This book is written with many. Each of my main characters has a point of view. The points of view change rapidly and often. The story develops through the shifting points of view. That’s just how I ended up writing the story; I didn’t plan it this way. For a time, I thought this might confuse the reader, but now I don’t think it will distract or be a problem.
I also had to work out how to deal with my characters across time. I won’t explain why this is an issue, since it would give away some of the plot. This was/is more problematic, but I should have a solution by the time I’m done.
I didn’t have a major conflict when I firsts started. I didn’t even have an antagonist. He appeared in one of the initial scenes and has grown and developed into a nice anti-villain. In some ways, he’s more well-developed than my ensemble characters.
I took the weekend off, and I’ll dive in to the final 25K words starting tomorrow. It’s been a fun ride. Now I have to tie up all the loose ends and work out the details of the final conflict.
Finally, I'll leave you with some graphs from my writing app.
Word up!