NaNoWriMo Novel Writing in One Month - I Did It!

For the first time in my life I took the NaNoWriMo challenge to write a novel in a month. It was also the first time I have ever attempted to write a novel at all. I have started a few books that I never finished, but they were all non-fiction about homeschooling, the bible, etc. This was a novel, a book to read just for fun. It was hard, but I did it.

Now before you start wondering when this book will be available let me assure you that it never will be. When you are focused on the number of words you don't have time to edit and I absolutely did not do any editing. Not only that, but the story line is all over the place. I was doing a good job of building characters and relationships but it wasn't really going anywhere so I threw in a little crisis which held me for awhile but I didn't feel it was enough. So I added in some other aspects and the story took a major turn leaving the the other crisis completely ignored.

There were also characters who I began to develop that never came to fruition and the title of my book, based upon my original concept, didn't even seem to go with what was happening so I had to go back and throw in scenes to work it in. Oh, and while I had a place to keep all my characters I would forget to write some down and so a few characters had name changes along the way!  One time was because I confused them with someone else and the other was that I just plumb forgot what I originally called him! And I still don't have a firm setting in place. I tried coming up with a fictitious name only to find it actually existed. I just didn't have the time to research geography.

In spite of it all I got my 50,000 words in which left me with a pretty good chunk of an incomplete and frenzied novel, but at least it does have a beginning a middle and a end. While it might not be totally cohesive, the point of the project was reached. I proved that I could write 50,000 words in a month. Just think about it. If I can do that, what can I do if I take my time? It was fun and helpful to see how well I could get my creative juices flowing. I handled areas of writing I felt weak in much better than I had expected and in the end I am left with some well developed characters, a theme, a title, and a few ideas of where they might lead. You never know, one day there just might be a book, but it will be built upon this session, not actually what was written during it.