NaNo Wrap-Up: Are You Happy with Your Accomplishment?
For better or for worse, the National Novel Writing Month (NaNo) of November is over. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve been catching up on sleep. (I lost count of how many nights I stayed up until midnight to get as many words in as possible.)
It was a month of highs and lows. I completed NaNo with 61,571 words (way more than the minimum 50,000) and ended up in my “stretch” goal range of 60-65K words. However, I didn’t finish the story like I was hoping (mostly because the story is turning out longer than I planned), and I owe more emails than I care to think about. *smile*
Overall, I did what I set out to do. I pushed myself, I wrote every day, and I learned that I can write a decent, full-length first draft in about a month-and-a-half.
The Ugly Side of Perfectionism
Some of the other things I learned about myself aren’t as pretty. As you can see from the My Month Calendar on the NaNo website, I had a lot of yellow days in the second half of the month. Those are days I didn’t reach the NaNo daily word count goal of 1667 words.
Sure, the Thanksgiving holiday was in there, complete with my brother and his family in town, but many of those yellow days I still could have made word count if I’d pushed myself just a little bit harder. Many of those days I reached about 1300 words, well within reach of that 1667 number. So, being the perfectionist that I am, I’m torn about my accomplishment.
I averaged 2,052 words each day over the month, and I had a couple of 4K days in the second half to make up for those 1300 days. But there’s a serious amount of yellow-day slacking off in the second half of the month.
If I’d kept up my same pace in the second half of the month as in the first, I would have ended up at 65K words. And as my drafting was going faster in the section of the story I was writing in the second half of the month, it’s not unreasonable for me to think that I could have reached 68K or even 70K.
Keeping Writing a Priority
Many of those yellow days in the last week were caused simply by not starting my writing for the day until the last minute. We probably all have days like that. We’re working on day job stuff, or Twitter, or blog reading/writing, etc, and we keep putting off our real writing. Then by the time we finally sit down to write, there aren’t enough hours in the day left to make a big dent.
Should I still feel good about what I did do? Or should I chide myself for slacking off? What’s a perfectionist to do?
I think the lesson I’ll take away is that NaNo month or not, writing won’t happen unless we make it a priority. If we say we’ll get to our story after we finish all our other projects, it won’t happen.
This goes along with what others found about when they write best. During my best NaNo days, I fit in writing throughout the day as I had time. During my worst NaNo days, I put it off until I could get a big chunk of time—and that didn’t happen until it was too late. Many writers echo this idea with trying to get words in first thing in the morning.
So now I know about my bad habits too. Note to self: Do not wait until the last minute to start on projects. Second note to self: Why didn’t this lesson stick in your head from that science project you had to do back in six grade? Third note to self: Make it stick this time, okay? *smile*
If you’ve done NaNo, what did you learn about yourself or your writing habits? Do you consider your NaNo word count a success? (If you had more words than you had in October, that can be a success!) Do you struggle with the “I could have done better” perfectionist monster? How do you overcome that feeling?
Jami,
I’m sooo incredibly proud of you for reaching, and exceeding the NaNo goal!!! AMAZING!!
I also want you to step back and look at your accomplishment as what it is, an accomplishment. A HUGE accomplishment.
You may not have reached the NaNo daily word count goal, but you wrote a hell of a lot of words and you should be proud of that first draft you now have under you belt.
You’re a role model.
Hopefully next year I can match your stamina and drive. This year…I didn’t even come close.
Have a great Tuesday!!!
Tamara
Hi Tamara,
LOL! Yes, thank you. As I said, this is definitely the ugly side of perfectionism. So it’s not that I’m not proud of what I accomplished, but I don’t think I feel as proud as I should–if that makes sense? 🙂 Thanks for the congrats and the comment! *hugs*
Hi Jami,
So glad you had a good experience with NaNoWriMo. I got 90k on my story. I set myself a limit of writing 5k a day, but then again my chapters are really long.
Thnaks for letting me comment
Vanessa
Hi Vanessa,
90K is amazing! I hope you’re proud of yourself. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
I’m glad you did nanowrimo. Some first time authros have a hard time doing it. And some authors published by the big 6 are working on wrapping up their series so they were using NaNo to get that book written. The next part is going to be hard, when you look at that draft with fresh eyes, you’ll say “OMG this is horrible” but heavy edit show each chapter as you edit to your critique partner.
Thanks for letting me comment
Hi Vanessa,
Yes, I had it easy compared to many others. I already knew I could finish a book, and I already knew where my story was going.
I’m not looking forward to the revisions, but I’ve survived those before too. 🙂 And I know they need to be done. Thanks for the comment!
Congrats on your success! Even if it’s not quite where you were hoping to be. I was happy to hit the 50k – that was my goal. I have a hard time reining in the perfectionist while I write (“wait a minute, that’s a big plot hole!”) but NaNo makes it easier to say, “Fix it later. Just get the words down!” Amazingly, my book came in short – first time that’s ever happened to me! So I used my last week of NaNo to fill in some holes and win!
Hi Jennette,
Congratulations on your NaNo win! 🙂
Yes, my characters kept adding scenes that I didn’t plan, but between my pantsing tendencies and the need to get words down, I went with them. The scenes make sense and fit too. 🙂 So either the writing just needs to be tightened, or this story is longer than I planned. LOL! Thanks for the comment!
I’m also happy that I was well over 50 K by the end of Nov. 30. Honestly, after hitting 50K, it seemed to be such a long time before Nov 30 finally came around, lol. Nanowrimo was wonderful because it made me realize that I can write for at least a whole hour every day AND still manage to do decently in school. 😀 So now, since there’s a free self publishing offer, I’m aiming to finish that nanowrimo novel in time to do so. It’s a real challenge, but it’s very exciting, and I’m posting my wordcount every day on Facebook so that my friends will see it and I can’t slack and must finish that novel. XD Plus, I really enjoy writing it and I’m extremely interested in learning what will happen to the protagonist (a five year old little boy from the infinitely far future) next! Also, I always thought that if I wrote so fast, I would generate a lot of crap. (Please pardon my language.) But it turns out most of my “crap” was useful stuff! There were a lot of digressions, but they always added to the novel: they let us learn more about the characters or more about their futuristic unbelievably technologically advanced world. So this is a great confidence boost. In addition, this nanowrimo month trained me to become even better at “looking at those moving pictures inside my head” and writing them down. It’s a real visible improvement and I feel… — Read More »
Hi Serena,
Congratulations to you on your accomplishment!
Yes, I’m spending December finishing up the last 15-20K or so of my NaNo story too. I’m sure I have a lot of crap in the writing I did, but the guts are good and probably just need to be tightened. And like you said, doing so much writing in such a short amount of time really helps you nail some aspects of the craft.
As for that seminar, yes, I’ve heard the advice that if you can quit, do. You’re only going to make it if you love it so much that you can’t quit. 🙂 Good luck finishing the last bit and thanks for the comment!
Well, I don’t have kids, and I still struggle to meet certain writing goals. I always have this habit of jumping into Nano without really planning out my approach, and while you took the “rebel” approach, I wanted to write a NEW book, not fiddle with an older one. After shelving my last novel due to lack of agent interest, I NEEDED to write a new book, but as much as I struggle with revision, drafting a new book’s even harder. I didn’t’ t work on a new book, but rather just fiddle with some old stuff, no full drafts of anything, and really the problem was I once again tried to do too much at once. As much as I’ve been preached to about taking small steps, I just feel I NEED to do more than “Baby Steps” to really get back on track, and while I’m trying to avoid too many public displays of negative quantifying, I’m also trying to keep myself honest, I just need more positive ways to do that. But I digress, as always… Jami, you shouldn’t feel ashamed, you didn’t meet your goal, but you wrote something more than perhaps you would’ve otherwise, especially with Thanksgiving being the precursor to the winter holidays. As far as prioritizing your writing, there are times you just have to accept that as long as you wrote SOMETHING from your WIP, it’s better than nothing. Even writers NOT married with children don’t write every day. As much as… — Read More »
Hi Taurean,
Yes, whereas I jumped into NaNo needing to finish this book, and while I’m closer to the goal, I still haven’t finished it. So that’s probably the root of my “not good enough” feeling, even though the biggest reason I didn’t finish the book has more to do with it being longer than I expected than not getting enough words in. 🙂 Ah, such is the illogic of the perfectionist. LOL!
But you’re absolutely right–as long as we got something done (especially if it’s more than we would have gotten done if we hadn’t made writing a priority), we’ve succeeded more by trying than we would have by not trying at all. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
Doing NaNo helped me articulate WHY I write, which is a huge motivational tool. Also, public accountability. It surprised how well I responded to the notion of others paying attention to my word count!
Here’s my list of motivational tools that got me through it:
http://ajbradleyscribbles.blogspot.ca/2012/12/4-things-that-kept-me-writing-lessons.html
Hi AJ,
Wonderful! I loved this line from the post you linked:
I can understand that. 🙂 That’s a big part of my prewriting phase. I don’t start writing until I have so many “scripts” or scenes playing out in my head that I can’t hold them all anymore. That’s when I know I need to get them on paper. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
For me, Nano was a success simply by creating something new. I’ve been so bust with revisions and non fiction, it’s been far too long since I wrote anything brand new. I felt I needed to do Nano just to prove to myself that I could still, if that makes any sense. 🙂
Hope all is well in Jami Land! 🙂
Angela
Hi Angela,
I think it’s awesome how you caught up to win! I was worried for you a bit there. 😉
And yes, I understand the need to create new things. I spend far too much time in revision land compared to drafting land. LOL! Thanks for the comment!
Congratulations on winning NaNo! I only made it to 25K, mostly because I realized I needed to replot the whole thing after five days of writing. Oh well. I learned a lot about how I write and it was worth it. My story outline is certainly stronger now.
The big question is – how long before my NaNo story sees the light of day?
Hi ChemistKen,
Congratulations on the words you did get! That’s a rough spot to be in during NaNo, but I’m glad you learned about your writing style and came out stronger. 🙂 Thanks for the comment!
[…] of us who participated probably racked up higher than normal daily word counts. And building on my previous NaNo wrap-up post, that success can carry over into other areas of our writing […]