NaNoWriMo 2012: WON!
I won!
It's been a tough month, somehow. Work has been the complete opposite of fun, and a lot of days getting those 1667 words has been a challenge because I've come home tired and so far from in the right mood for writing - but I did it anyway. :)
This year's NaNoWriMo was a bit of a personal challenge for me.
I don't usually write in first person, and for the purposes of NaNo I've never actually written a truly 'serious' story before. What I mean is, I've never been invested in writing a story that I knew I wanted to be published one day. There are some I'd like to polish up and send out retrospectively, but before this year, every NaNo I've written has been first and foremost for fun.
I knew going in this time that I wanted Bloodletter to be something I could publish. That made it ... pretty impossible going at the start until I allowed myself to let go of perfection.
Perfection is for second drafts. This was getting the story down. And it was actually fun!
I have thoroughly tortured my MC, Mathlan, and I'd feel truly terrible about it if it wasn't for the fact that he's actually brought most of it upon himself. :P He's his own worst enemy. And the thing is - there aren't really 'bad guys' so far. There's just Math fighting against himself. Which kind of works, and I like it ...
I've always wanted to write a story about the bad guy, anyway. :P
Now I just have to actually finish the story, and polish it, and send it to an agent - haha, lots of hard work yet to come! :P I think I'm only a third to half way in to his story, which is a little daunting. But then, I've enjoyed writing Math so far.
The first person has been weirdly easy. I'm a little scared by that, because Math is ... really not mentally healthy. :S I'm scared that I can get into his head as easily as I do. (But at the same time, I know I'm falling into stupid traps - 'I knew' / 'I realised' happens far too often, when I could just be more immediate. Oh well. Fixing is for another time!)
Also I found myself listening to music while writing for the first time in years. (Normally I just have to have silence because otherwise it's distracting and I end up singing.) So I listened to - of all things - Disney's Greatest Hits. XD Which should have been really jarring when I was writing a magic/drug addiction parallel. But it helped, anyway. Kept me going. Whatever helps, right? :P
In a way I'm glad the pressure of NaNoWriMo is off ... and yet I'm not, because NaNo is so much fun and I love it and I feel like this year I've not really got into it as much because of work being an arse. :(
At least it'll be there next year. Hopefully I'll be in a better place than I am now, and everything won't seem like a massive slog. ;)
I'm going to leave you with a final little bonus. I didn't make my traditional Winner's Banner last year, because I didn't really like the winner goodies that we got. (I don't know why, I think they're quite pretty now!) So last night, while I was tinkering with this year's, I went ahead and made one for 2011.
.
It's been a tough month, somehow. Work has been the complete opposite of fun, and a lot of days getting those 1667 words has been a challenge because I've come home tired and so far from in the right mood for writing - but I did it anyway. :)
This year's NaNoWriMo was a bit of a personal challenge for me.
I don't usually write in first person, and for the purposes of NaNo I've never actually written a truly 'serious' story before. What I mean is, I've never been invested in writing a story that I knew I wanted to be published one day. There are some I'd like to polish up and send out retrospectively, but before this year, every NaNo I've written has been first and foremost for fun.
I knew going in this time that I wanted Bloodletter to be something I could publish. That made it ... pretty impossible going at the start until I allowed myself to let go of perfection.
Perfection is for second drafts. This was getting the story down. And it was actually fun!
I have thoroughly tortured my MC, Mathlan, and I'd feel truly terrible about it if it wasn't for the fact that he's actually brought most of it upon himself. :P He's his own worst enemy. And the thing is - there aren't really 'bad guys' so far. There's just Math fighting against himself. Which kind of works, and I like it ...
I've always wanted to write a story about the bad guy, anyway. :P
Now I just have to actually finish the story, and polish it, and send it to an agent - haha, lots of hard work yet to come! :P I think I'm only a third to half way in to his story, which is a little daunting. But then, I've enjoyed writing Math so far.
The first person has been weirdly easy. I'm a little scared by that, because Math is ... really not mentally healthy. :S I'm scared that I can get into his head as easily as I do. (But at the same time, I know I'm falling into stupid traps - 'I knew' / 'I realised' happens far too often, when I could just be more immediate. Oh well. Fixing is for another time!)
Also I found myself listening to music while writing for the first time in years. (Normally I just have to have silence because otherwise it's distracting and I end up singing.) So I listened to - of all things - Disney's Greatest Hits. XD Which should have been really jarring when I was writing a magic/drug addiction parallel. But it helped, anyway. Kept me going. Whatever helps, right? :P
In a way I'm glad the pressure of NaNoWriMo is off ... and yet I'm not, because NaNo is so much fun and I love it and I feel like this year I've not really got into it as much because of work being an arse. :(
At least it'll be there next year. Hopefully I'll be in a better place than I am now, and everything won't seem like a massive slog. ;)
I'm going to leave you with a final little bonus. I didn't make my traditional Winner's Banner last year, because I didn't really like the winner goodies that we got. (I don't know why, I think they're quite pretty now!) So last night, while I was tinkering with this year's, I went ahead and made one for 2011.
.