It's NaNoWriMo Time

My first full, real fantasy novel came about because of a little challenge, a little boredom, and a new city. I had just moved to DC, didn't have any friends, and there I sat still in the process of unpacking. I'm not sure how I heard about National Novel Writing Month, but I am grateful for it and that first poorly written 50k words.

Will you be a writer this year?

I began my writing a little late into November, renting a room in someone else's apartment. Not even as a roommate, just to have a place until I could find something close to work. And there I sat. And then an idea began to tickle in the back of my head for some romance novel.

I moved into my apartment, sat at my dining table that doubled as an everything surface and began to type away. No planning, no idea where anything was going, and no goal other than 50k words. Not a bad way to start, many people write this way. And soon that tickle of a romance turned into a fantasy novel. I'm not sure there ever was a romance novel in my head, I don't really read romance, but I have read fantasy since high school.

Not having a life ensured that I wrote that novel and in record time. I wrote 10k words on at least one day, 5k and 7k on other days. I started writing late in the month and finished before the end of the month. Finished the challenge that is. iI took another NaNoWriMo to finish that novel, filled with such wonderful things as 'whatever I called that town', or 'what's his name'.

From this I learned to grab the zone and flow with it. I learned that stopping to figure out a name wasn't worth losing the zone. Editing can be done later with what I wrote, but can't be done now with words I haven't written. Pacing myself is better than burning out on writing for a year from writing like a maniac for one month. In the end, NaNoWriMo has been worth doing. I wrote that first novel in two months, and realized how much I love writing, once I got over the burnout that is.

Will I participate this year? I'm not sure. I am hoping to have 'Stones of Change' finished before November starts, so I could in theory start a new novel. But I want to do at least one edit pass to fix holes and additions I made while writing. I have begun plotting out another book, so time will tell.