I Won NaNoWriMo!

So, I did it! I won National Novel Writing Month! It was a grueling 29 days (I finished a day early! Woot!) but I made it through, and I learned a lot about myself and really rediscovered the joy of writing.

The most important thing I learned during NaNoWriMo was that I could actually do it - I could actually write a story that had a plot, characters, etc., and I could see it through to the end. My story is not terribly good - I am going to have to do a lot of editing to make it even semi readable, and I will have to do a shit ton of editing to the already edited story to have a prayer of getting it published. And even then it's pretty hit and miss. The truth is, this story may or may not ever see publication. But it was important to show myself that I really, honestly have the time and the drive to see writing a story through to the end - something I had never done before. I have started dozens of stories and come back to them occasionally, but I have never seen any through to the end. I love that NaNoWriMo showed me that I can actually do it, and hopefully gave me the confidence boost to write another story, and another story, and another story until I hit on something that I can publish and, hopefully, make a bazillion dollars on. (I aspire to be nothing less than the next J.K. Rowling, of course! *wink*)

The other thing that NaNoWriMo showed me was just how much I love to write and create stories. I used to write little stories in elementary school classes, and I come up with little scenarios and stories in my head all the time. I did really well on the writing portions of our state's standardized tests because I was, and am, a quick writer with a lot of stories rolling around in my head. My creative writing fell by the wayside in high school (because I poured my creativity into music and had a lot of activities), stayed by the wayside in college largely (too much homework) and stayed back in my first few years of my newspaper career (because I was writing all day for work and didn't want to write when I got home. Also, I started dating my now-husband and that took up some precious time!). But when I switched to being an editor earlier this year and stopped doing a lot of actual writing for the newspaper, it seemed like the perfect time to get back into creative writing. And it's largely been wonderful. I love the thrill of coming up with an inspired piece of dialogue or writing a great scene. I love it when the plot comes together, or when I start to really get a feel for a character.

It's not all fun and games, though. In my NaNoWriMo piece, my plot got off the rails several times. I doubted myself and my story a lot. I wasn't sure, and I'm still not sure, that I have something that anybody will ever enjoy reading. And it was tough to make myself write every day. Some days were easy, but a lot of days were really tough. I had to force myself to leave the comfort of my couch and the entertainment of my TV to go spend a couple of hours sitting in Starbucks, trying to figure out what was going to happen next in my book. But I also must say that after every single time I wrote another chunk of my book, I was excited to see how much more I had written. It was even better on the days that I actually liked what I wrote!

NaNoWriMo made me realize that writing fiction is something I really want to do. I know that it's that way for a lot of people - there are thousands of aspiring novelists out there - but after seeing how NaNoWriMo went, I have made getting a book published my goal.

For now, I'm planning on taking a little weeklong break to relax and recuperate from the craziness that was writing 50,000 words in one month. I actually started reading a book today - "The Hunger Games" (I'm already hooked). I hadn't read much of anything in a month, which is practically unprecedented for me! I'm also going to catch up on the online class I'm taking, maybe catch up on some long-neglected housework, decorate for Christmas. But then, starting next week, I'm going to be back in the grind. I plan to print out my novel and start reading through it with a red pen, aggressively editing. I also think I'm going to either pick up an old story I started or start working on a new one before I get back out of the habit of writing. The pace won't be as frantic, so I might actually even be able to update this blog once in a while!

Anyway ... in conclusion, if you think you might want to be a writer, I highly suggest NaNoWriMo as a way to get yourself into the writing habit. And if any published writer happens to stumble across this blog ... any tips on editing and getting published would be VERY appreciated!