5 Things NaNoWriMo 2018 Taught Me

Hey guys!

Soo, we made it. NaNoWriMo is finally over and we can go back to our (mostly) normal lives. That may still include writing, but it might NOT include obsessive pounding on the keyboard to get your word count for the day and/or trying to catch up because of all the days you fell behind. (Or was that just me?)

Today I'm going to be sharing four things that NaNoWriMo taught me this year, or simply reminded me of. This was simultaneously the toughest and best NaNo I've ever had, and I feel like I grew a lot as a writer this November.

Soo without further ado (what does that even mean?): 

(This is my first banner! Needs some work, but it's not bad.)

#1 I NEED TO WORK ON MY PLOTTING SKILLS

I'm a pantser. And that showed when I went into this novel with a general idea of what was going to happen, but not a lot of information on some of the details. I didn't write bios about each of my characters; I just got to know them as I wrote them. I even made up a character mid-story. I formulated events that were never in my original plans (and, frankly, I didn't know if they were going to stick-- gotta get to that word count somehow) but actually seemed to kind of work.

And all that's okay, to a degree. And maybe for some people it's just plain okay. But for me, it just doesn't always work anymore. Like always, I didn't have a perfect outline for this story, therefore there was a lot of the in-between story that I wasn't sure about.

I always try to plan my novels, I really do. But the truth is, the last four novels I've started have been for NaNo and I've started planning them way too late, therefore I run out of time and greet November 1 with a minimally planned story.

And you know what? I never won a NaNo (until this year). So I feel something has to change. Next NaNo (and with any new novel I write) I'm going to start a lot earlier, planning and outlining. I'm terrible at outlining. But I'm going to work on that and other ways to plan a story, because I knew what needed to happen in this story better than I think I ever had before and it was a lot easier to write that way. I don't think I'll ever be a hardcore plotter-- maybe "plantser" is the right word for me.

(By the way, I don't mean to imply that if you don't win NaNoWriMo, that means you're a failure and need to change the way you write. I'm just talking about ME and what held me back personally from winning.)

#2 THE FIRST DRAFT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT

Obviously we all know this. For me, first draft = messy writing. Bad jokes and awkward sentence structure. First drafts are just about getting the story down on the page.

But I'm mostly referring here to the actual story. If you're like me, sometimes you run into a place in your story where you're not sure what should happen next. So you completely MAKE SOMETHING UP that may or may not actually have any bearing on the story.

I'm not talking about completely changing the direction of your story (having your MC suddenly get the notion to start an animal rescue while he's supposed to be saving the world from Evil Villain is probably just a plain old waste of time). I'm talking about coming to a point where you don't know how to get from point A to point B so you create a possible bridge between those two events. I do this all the time. And I don't always keep what I write.

It might sound like a waste of time, but I don't think it is. First of all, speaking in NaNo terms, it gives you something to write/get your word count in. Second, it helps you move along with your story without stopping and getting stuck on one thing. Third, every word you write is like exercise for your writerly self. The more you write, the better you'll get at it, even if you don't use everything you initially put in your story. And lastly, it helps you explore different ideas for your story and come up with the right one. You might have heard the term "discovery writer". I think that's what this means-- instead of planning out every detail, you have to just write and discover your story.

Long story short, I think it's okay to write parts of your story that you might know for a fact are not going to stick, because it keeps you going, helps you decide what's best for your story, and you can always change it later.

#3 WORD SPRINTS ARE THE BEST

Y'all, word sprints SAVED me this NaNoWriMo.

Seriously, if it wasn't for those ten-minute spurts when I FORCED myself to keep from scrolling through the Internet and agonizing over the fact that I was so behind on my word count, I don't know what I would have done. Distractions are SUCH an issue, and word sprints helped me to shove those distractions to the back of my mind and not let them come back until that timer went off.

Plus whenever I finished a word sprint I rewarded myself with chocolate, so. That made it even better.

#4 I LOVE WRITING

We all knew this, right?

But seriously, this NaNo helped me remember how much I love to write and how special and important it is to me. It reminded me that I want to finish this story and all my other stories and see them on bookshelves one day. In a year where I've done very little writing, it rejuvenated my love for it.

#5 I CAN WRITE 50k IN A MONTH

Lastly, this NaNo taught me that I CAN win NaNoWriMo!

In my last post I told you guys how I won my first NaNo, on my fourth year of trying. Remember how I said earlier in this post how I got stuck and that kept me from winning? That happened EVERY time. By the third one, you can imagine I was getting pretty discouraged. Not because I couldn't finish NaNo, but because I couldn't finish my stories. Getting stuck is the worst, y'all.
But this year it rolled so much better. And while I haven't finished my novel yet, I made it to 50k. I carved out the time every day to write and I caught up at the end of it all just in time to win NaNoWriMo.

And it was fantastic.

This NaNoWriMo was so great. I already can't wait for next year (and I'm going to be better prepared ;))! And I'm ready to keep writing. I'm still excited about this year's NaNo novel Roots to Claim, and I'm hoping to finish it this month. With all the craziness of Christmas, we'll see. But that's my hope! I can't wait to finish writing Archlan's story.

Well, that's it for today! I hope you all had a great NaNoWriMo and for those who didn't participate, a great November! Here's to December!