My NaNoWriMo Experience!

HI there Razzies~

So, um, yeah. I’m not dead. Sorry for not posting for three weeks. BUT I was busy. With school, the Prom on Netflix (which is coming out tomorrow!!), and NaNoWriMo. Which, is what today’s post is about!

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, where you, well, write a novel. In a month. If you write about 1667 words a day, you get to 50K by the end of the month.

And here’s my diary of my experience!

Off we go!

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The Before

So I spent most of the end of October planning. I decided to go with something I had already started. It’s a theatre-murder mystery. I wrote a post on the basics here. So, for two days, I ate candy and made a plot chart. To think of it, I ate a lot of candy during NaNo. 

The Beginning (Week One)

I started strong, writing 2000 on the first day. On the second day, I wrote about 1000, to get to my 3334. 

The beginning is usually the easiest, since you’re mostly doing setting and characters, so I was doing pretty well. I was writing pretty late the entire month, because of school and life. 

The Middle (Weeks 2 and 3)

It was still going pretty well. I was writing, eating candy, procrastinating, the usual. I ended up adding a ton of stuff to my plot, such as subplots, extra clues, etcetera. I’m really glad I did, and glad that it came together so well in the end.

This was about the time I decided to be brave, and I went to my first NaNo event. The entire month, they had these virtual writing workshops. In total, I went to about 4 or 5. They were really fun, and helpful for my writing. 

I also started doing sprints, and checking my word count. My score for most words in ten minutes was about 500, which is about a third of the total for the day. 

I also procrastinated a lot, which isn’t a big surprise. 

I made a playlist of songs that went with the novel, so show tunes like Heathers, and the Cell Block Tango. I also had a lot of Pop-Rock, so Panic! At the Disco, Marina and the Diamonds, and Mother Mother.

The End (Week 4) (Dunn, Dunn, DUUUn)

This was when I started freaking out. I had so much to do, and so much left to write about, and had about 5 days. Great planning, Catie! Seriously, we hadn’t even gotten to the climax yet. 

In the end, I wrote about 5000 words on the last day, and got to a total of 53K. I still can’t believe I did it. 180 pages, 53021 words, all in a month. It’s crazy. 

After (Now) 

When NaNo ended, I really had nothing to do. I was suddenly so free, it was really weird. I even got another project going, thinking It’ll last me the entire month. I finished it, in a day. 

I also started (trying) to play the guitar, which has given me something to do. You can never have too many string instruments.

I’m really self-conscious of my writing, especially my creative writing (that’s why it took me so long to share it on my blog, and why I don’t tell people about my blog) so writing, every day for a month, was really helpful for my writing skills, my confidence, and it gave my something to do in these times. So I’m extremely glad I did it.

So what’s next?

I’ve set my novel aside, for all of December. I’m going to start editing in January, and publish it sometime in the next two decades. Wish me luck.

I’m going to try and get back on my blogging schedule, and be more active ‘round here. I also wanna do more Creative Writing Posts. Thoughts on that?

So, is this the end? Maybe. I don’t know if I’ll do NaNo next year, but I sure hope so.

Finally, I wanna say thanks to y’all, who haven’t gone crazy in my absence. Y’all are pretty cool. ❤ (I promise to blog again next Monday.)

Love Ya, and stay safe.