So I should begin by apologising for my absence from this blog for a little while: as you can likely guess from the logo above, I was otherwise occupied with NaNoWriMo! I have given myself a slap on the wrist for being so neglectful and am now detoxing from the whole experience (I ate way too many biscuits while it was going on - and also need to relax).
On the bright side, I managed to reach 50067 words by 30th November and so can say that I have won NaNoWriMo, so as well as the slap on the wrist I also did a lot of happy, excited dancing around the flat!
I wanted to take some time to consider NaNoWriMo from the other end, after I spent so long anticipating it and actually doing it. My experience with the entire thing this year was completely different to the way I saw it last year.
Let me start off by saying that my month was absolutely insane. Really, I don't actually know how I managed it. I have a full time job with increasing levels of responsibility, roleplaying games a few evenings a week, choir, Network... Yeah, I'm a busy person. I honestly found the word count very, very gruelling when I considered it in balance with everything else in my life right now. I know that I wouldn't have thought the same if I had dropped out of things a little more, but I also hate letting people down.
As such I also didn't bow out of Athesia - biannual roleplaying game that I am part of, and recently became a senior GM (gamemaster) for. As such I had some duties that I couldn't shy away from, so I did what any good NaNovelist would do and rebelled a little. I counted writing I did in preparation for the game as part of my overall word count for the month. I know, another slap on the wrist, but if I hadn't I never would have felt the motivation to write it or my novel. In the end, that decision was definitely worth it, however - taking the extra time over the plot for it meant that I felt more confident with what I had written and so I didn't spend my entire weekend worried about my word count (I ensured that my pre-Athesia word count was far enough ahead that I could take the weekend off writing quite happily).
I found that the first week I had a lot of trouble making the par daily word count: I was still full of uncertainties and confusion about the tone of my story, and I as writing "whenever I could", which resulted in me scribbling things in dribs and drabs. I know everyone says that writing a little here and a little there adds up, but I found that I wrote more (and more consistently) when I gave myself a certain time frame to write in, for example I would give myself two hours to write what I could and couldn't write outside of those two hours for the rest of the evening.
The most important thing I found, however, was having people around. As well as various friends of mine who were NaNo-ing along with me, I also joined my region's Facebook group, NaNoEssex. While I didn't manage to get to any of the events run by the latter, I found that just being able to talk to other people doing the same crazy challenge as myself was a huge help. When I took part in NaNoWriMo last year, I was unemployed and on Jobseekers Allowance. I was living in a weirdly difficult-to-get-to place and so, aside from my boyfriend and the occasional visit from a friend I was almost entirely alone. I can't even begin to describe how demotivated I was - I still find it strange that I managed to get out 25000 words that month.
But having human contact this year - both physical and digital - proved to be something that kept me going. From checking out my writing buddies' word counts (and getting excited for them when they were doing well) to chatting with people on the NaNoEssex group (and getting excited for them when they were doing well), I felt a lot more "in the loop" and positive than last year. Whether it is a subconscious competitive streak or just the simple knowledge that there were other people just as mad as I was, I loved the social aspect of NaNo this year and I think it really, truly helped me get to the hallowed 50k.
Since November ended this year, I'll admit I haven't done a huge amount of writing: this blog post is the first extended piece of writing I have done. Instead I have picked up a story I finished a little while ago and have started revising and editing it. It's relaxing to take time over something again after the craziness of last month. I have set myself a smaller word count to hit each month for now - between 5000 and 10000 - and hopefully will keep to that.
All in all, this year's experience was far more positive than last, and I'm already planning for April's Camp NaNoWriMo!
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