I'm back, sorry about those pitiful posts the last two weeks. November flew by so quickly but here I am again, with good news!! After two years of wanting to be a part of NaNoWriMo, including the winning, I finally managed it! No, it wasn't a breeze as I'd expected, but it was so rewarding. As you all know, it was on my mind all November, every time I was on the computer not working on it. So I really wanted to share the rocky journey, to be an encouragement that it is always too early to give up. Here's how my month went.
So about two years I heard about NaNoWriMo and I've been aching to try it ever since. It was just the kind of motivation I needed. Every other story I'd ever begun lasted no more than a few pages at most and then I'd give up. Well for the next two years, I signed up and attempted for maybe a week or so, but didn't get much past that. The first time, I blamed it on not having a computer at my house. The second, it was because I was too busy what with being at school eight hours a day and such. But this November, I knew it was my chance and I couldn't pass it by. I'd so graciously been released from public school not two months earlier, and now had time on my side, I thought it would be easy. Everything was perfectly set up for me to follow my dreams of how fun it would be.
I started out very excited, with no idea whatsoever for a plot or where I would go with it. Of course I'd tossed some possibilities around, played with a few, but I really wanted to have a fresh, clean slate to start on, because when I've been forming things in my head for a long time, I tend to use up all my energy at the beginning getting out all the fully formed details. Then I run out of steam and the story dies. I'd convinced my brother to join the adult website and so he and I were both so pumped about it. He didn't last three days. I wonder if that's part of it. Though I barely tried those first years, I think the failure strengthened me to really give my best this time through. Because three is a magic number.
After the first few days, I was already falling behind. I'd already begun thinking, "I don't think I can do this, I'll just have to try again next year," when my brother was like "No, you have to do this!" And it strengthened my resolution. I saw how he'd done the "next year" drop out method, but he still wanted me to do it. It made me decide exactly how much I wanted this and got me writing again. At least for a few days...of course life wouldn't slow down to accommodate my writing time, I had to find time along with everything else and I soon fell behind again. Even when I had time, I wasted it. I kept putting it off, convinced that I would do it later when I had more ideas. Most days I wrote nothing at all, or if I did, it was very little. Now and again I would have a sudden flash of what was going to happen and then I'd write like crazy, almost catching up on that maddeningly satisfying graph. They were glimpses though, and never lasted long. I was gradually falling behind, also increasing my 'number of words needed to finish on time' very slowly.
It was the realization that we would be gone the last week of November that spurred me into action. It's that problem again with time where if you have too much of it you slack. Before finally urging me into a mad gallop, I stupidly waited those remaining days, absorbing that there was no way I could write in the car and that it would put me so behind that I had failed once again. It was sad to think that I would have to wait all the way 'til next year again. Or so I thought. Then out of nowhere everyone seemed to remember that I was on a deadline and encouraged me not to give up. We stopped at my sister's place for the midpoint of our journey, and though I was tired and not in much a mood to write, I did it anyway.
Of course even then I still didn't think I'd make it. I didn't even know if my grandma's house had internet and even if she did, I wasn't even half way finished. Yet that week I was again raised high by everyone's interest and the way they made it important. The computer was new and the internet would suffice to support my simple Google document that I was working through. But it wasn't until three days from the end that I realized if I really put my mind to it, it was completely possible to win, but only just. The next morning most everyone left for an all day visit with my opa. I didn't want to go and they let me stay to write. So I had a marathon. I wrote all day with breaks at 500-1000 word intervals. It was strangely entertaining. At that point my focus wasn't on the content so much, I had no room to be picky if I was going for the words. I wrote whatever popped into my head, I wrote only scenes that interested me, skipping around like crazy at the end. Upon reaching my goal on the last day possible, I felt very accomplished and very worn out.
The product was 80 something pages of story that I might never use, or perhaps I will. I haven't even read through it all yet, but I know without doing so that what I have right now is a bunch of disconnected scenes that I will have a job trying to sew together. The beginning isn't even the same story. Since over half was written in just a few days, I can see when I started to get somewhere with any of it. I didn't understand my characters at all in the beginning. Yet it doesn't matter. That was more than I've written ever before and it's taught my three things. Perseverance is rewarding. I truly do enjoy writing, even a lot of it. And it takes time and experimenting to get anywhere in a story. It's not like what I ended up with is a final copy. Even though I think I might change the whole goal of it, that's what first drafts are for. It showed me what I was looking for and gave me a place to begin and it was incredible. There's nothing more rewarding to me than reaching goals. After all that uncertainty about whether or not I'd even finish, I can say that I was successful and enjoy six months to edit, come up with an ending, and then get free printed copies. How cool is that?
So about two years I heard about NaNoWriMo and I've been aching to try it ever since. It was just the kind of motivation I needed. Every other story I'd ever begun lasted no more than a few pages at most and then I'd give up. Well for the next two years, I signed up and attempted for maybe a week or so, but didn't get much past that. The first time, I blamed it on not having a computer at my house. The second, it was because I was too busy what with being at school eight hours a day and such. But this November, I knew it was my chance and I couldn't pass it by. I'd so graciously been released from public school not two months earlier, and now had time on my side, I thought it would be easy. Everything was perfectly set up for me to follow my dreams of how fun it would be.
I started out very excited, with no idea whatsoever for a plot or where I would go with it. Of course I'd tossed some possibilities around, played with a few, but I really wanted to have a fresh, clean slate to start on, because when I've been forming things in my head for a long time, I tend to use up all my energy at the beginning getting out all the fully formed details. Then I run out of steam and the story dies. I'd convinced my brother to join the adult website and so he and I were both so pumped about it. He didn't last three days. I wonder if that's part of it. Though I barely tried those first years, I think the failure strengthened me to really give my best this time through. Because three is a magic number.
After the first few days, I was already falling behind. I'd already begun thinking, "I don't think I can do this, I'll just have to try again next year," when my brother was like "No, you have to do this!" And it strengthened my resolution. I saw how he'd done the "next year" drop out method, but he still wanted me to do it. It made me decide exactly how much I wanted this and got me writing again. At least for a few days...of course life wouldn't slow down to accommodate my writing time, I had to find time along with everything else and I soon fell behind again. Even when I had time, I wasted it. I kept putting it off, convinced that I would do it later when I had more ideas. Most days I wrote nothing at all, or if I did, it was very little. Now and again I would have a sudden flash of what was going to happen and then I'd write like crazy, almost catching up on that maddeningly satisfying graph. They were glimpses though, and never lasted long. I was gradually falling behind, also increasing my 'number of words needed to finish on time' very slowly.
It was the realization that we would be gone the last week of November that spurred me into action. It's that problem again with time where if you have too much of it you slack. Before finally urging me into a mad gallop, I stupidly waited those remaining days, absorbing that there was no way I could write in the car and that it would put me so behind that I had failed once again. It was sad to think that I would have to wait all the way 'til next year again. Or so I thought. Then out of nowhere everyone seemed to remember that I was on a deadline and encouraged me not to give up. We stopped at my sister's place for the midpoint of our journey, and though I was tired and not in much a mood to write, I did it anyway.
Of course even then I still didn't think I'd make it. I didn't even know if my grandma's house had internet and even if she did, I wasn't even half way finished. Yet that week I was again raised high by everyone's interest and the way they made it important. The computer was new and the internet would suffice to support my simple Google document that I was working through. But it wasn't until three days from the end that I realized if I really put my mind to it, it was completely possible to win, but only just. The next morning most everyone left for an all day visit with my opa. I didn't want to go and they let me stay to write. So I had a marathon. I wrote all day with breaks at 500-1000 word intervals. It was strangely entertaining. At that point my focus wasn't on the content so much, I had no room to be picky if I was going for the words. I wrote whatever popped into my head, I wrote only scenes that interested me, skipping around like crazy at the end. Upon reaching my goal on the last day possible, I felt very accomplished and very worn out.
The product was 80 something pages of story that I might never use, or perhaps I will. I haven't even read through it all yet, but I know without doing so that what I have right now is a bunch of disconnected scenes that I will have a job trying to sew together. The beginning isn't even the same story. Since over half was written in just a few days, I can see when I started to get somewhere with any of it. I didn't understand my characters at all in the beginning. Yet it doesn't matter. That was more than I've written ever before and it's taught my three things. Perseverance is rewarding. I truly do enjoy writing, even a lot of it. And it takes time and experimenting to get anywhere in a story. It's not like what I ended up with is a final copy. Even though I think I might change the whole goal of it, that's what first drafts are for. It showed me what I was looking for and gave me a place to begin and it was incredible. There's nothing more rewarding to me than reaching goals. After all that uncertainty about whether or not I'd even finish, I can say that I was successful and enjoy six months to edit, come up with an ending, and then get free printed copies. How cool is that?
And, to all my German readers out there, Happy Saint Nicholas Day!
Here's the verse as promised, check back on last week as well because I added a good Thanksgiving one.
Romans 5:3-4
3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.
Here's the verse as promised, check back on last week as well because I added a good Thanksgiving one.
Romans 5:3-4
3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.
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