This year was going to be different from last year. That’s what I said. Last year was my first NaNoWriMo and I was so psyched for it. I was excited and inspired and determined to get it done. I knew my story, had an outline, I was ready to go… And then I didn’t. For the first three days nothing happened and by day nine I only had half of the words I was supposed to. By day 21 I was still incredibly behind, but somehow I made it work. I hit my goal of 50,000 words. I did it. But afterwards I wasn’t all that thrilled with what I wrote.
This year I thought I had it all figured out. I was determined to write every day, because last year I wouldn’t write anything for three days and then have a sprint day, and then take another few days off. That pattern was awful and by the end of each sprint day I would feel burned out, which was why I didn’t write anything the days immediately following it. But this year – no. I mean 1,667 words every day isn’t a big deal assuming you write every day – right? Um, wrong!
And that leads me into my second resolution: I wanted to write quality prose, and not just focus on making the word count. I really wasn’t happy with a good chunk of what I wrote last year. I’m a wordy writer, and I have grown enough to notice and dial it back as I write a first draft. But with my NaNoWriMo novel, I welcomed the wordiness. Hell, I encouraged it. Which meant there was a lot of fictive fat to cut away. I probably only had 30,000 to 40,000 words I would want to keep. But I wrote a little over 50,000 words. So in a way I made my goal last year, but in a more important way I didn’t.
