What I have learned from NANOWRIMO

Sometimes it was fun, other times it was slog. I managed somehow to write over 50k in mone month....Here is waht I have learned..

1 I am not writer, perhaps with wee bit of practice I might write something that someone where might enjoy.

2 I am not planner. I just wrote and wrote and wrote. I think I am one of those types who actually loved going back and editing stuff. Perhaps I am budding book editor. Mind you I will have to learn how to spell, understand grammar, learn about bloody "rules".

3 I enjoyed being inside my head. Sir Terry Pratchett was right wrting is the best fun you can have on your own.

4 I loved all my characters, even the nasty motherf!#$!#s

5 two hours a day and writing nearly 1800 words is possible.Even with the wife rolling her eyes...

6 moving characters about from point A to poin b is bloody hard, they keep wanting to go the pub and get off with each other.

7 I wrote over 50,000 words. It felt like an intro to the real story that I wanted to write!

8 never be afraid of your imagination.

9You do no realise how much a limited vocab you have till you start writing.

10 Google maps and Wikipedia. I shall say no more

Overall I have enjoyed the experience, some where in the mountain of rubbish that I typed out is story, that in the right hands, could actually be quite a good read. My sister in law who is published crime writer tells me that it takes her 7-8 drafts to be actually readable. I shall now continue to leisurely write the rest of it and see what happens.
Back next year? Mmm we shall see….

Yay! Congrats on finishing and learning so much!

Oh my do I agree 1000000000% with #9. I have become good friends with thesaurus.com :)

Yeah, I would have to agree with you there! This is my first time ever, writing this much, but I have enjoyed it so much.

11) Contractions (can't, isn't, won't) are death in NaNo. They should be avoided like they are some super advanced from of plague.
12) Rooms get very messy if they have not been cleaned for a month.
13) Tea.

I've learned what my GF will feel like when she's writing her dissertation next year and I'm whining for attention. I had to stop and remember to take her out on a few.. uh... dates this month.

1.) Friends are not ideas.
2.) Ideas are not friends.
3.) Both need nurturing, but in different ways.

Learned:
1)Plots involving future is hard to stay futuristic.
2) Parent's that are "supportive" do nothing at all.
3)I'm good at focusing at one thing.
4) I'm a bad procrastinator.
5) I have a really bad attention span especially when it comes to internet. As seen by my word count.

#s 4 and 10 for sure. A couple of minor characters will end up in a short story at some point.

21. I CAN write without constantly self-editing.

22. Next year, re-read only back far enough to remember what you were writing.

23. I'm doing this again next year.

#10, definitely. I've used street view so much this month, I feel like a stalker :)

What I have learned-

1-I am loving the writing world more and more, even with not much sleep because I have to write the next scene, just one more scene....

2-My stories don't get to 50,000 words, which I have to remedy by next November.

3-Having a word count chart is a blessing. And a curse.

4-Even if you don't get to 50k, seeing that you made it to your own personal goal, and beyond, is such a happy feeling.

1. Writing isn't hard. It's writing consistently and writing the boring bits that are hard.
2. The novel has t oend somewhere. You can't just write on forever. If you want to do that, start another book.
3. Do NOT ask friends for an idea to get you writing. Their characters take over.
4. You don't have to write start to finish with the middle inbetween. It is perfectly alright to write all the events in the middle. Just remember you have to fill it in eventually.
5. Work out how you are going to get your characters somewhere before you get them there. Otherwise it's hard fiddly stuff trying to explain why they're there.
6. Ninjas do exist.
7. Sleep deprivation, in moderation, is an excellent help. It makes it easier to write a lot. Just, don't edit it yourself the next morning...

- writing fiction at the same time as writing scholarly research article reviews is not fun
- novel wins over term paper every time
- professors don't take well to the excuse "but I'm writing this novel you see," well, one of them did and that term paper is due on Thursday
- it is more fun to get caught up in your own novel than someone else's (although Harry Potter > my novel any day)
- my characters wrote my novel for me

Oh my gosh #9 is soooo true! I kept repeating just, really, pretty, kinda, confused, and partying. Haha just and really are probably the worst though because I say those all the time in everyday conversation.

- I AM a planner. Plots don't make themselves--at least, not for me.
- Writing is exhausting.
- It is perfectly possible to sit still for three hours and write. I just tell myself it's not because I don't feel like doing that.
- Everything is more fun when you're doing it to procrastinate.

Don't get bogged down on little details. Don't stop because you can't think of a name right away, just put in a placeholder and move on.

Don't rush to the ending. Your characters probably should have some difficulty in reaching their objectives, or else it wouldn't have been a story. If Frodo had taken the express subway to Mordor and gotten off at the Mount Doom station, the story would have reached its end quickly, and not been interesting.

Description brings up the word count, but isn't fluff. Description is important.

Look in your story for "hooks", opportunities to expand on ideas later.

Just keep writing, you get more ideas the more you write.

1. Write, that's how the plot develops.

I learned that slow and steady will get you to the goal.

Contractions are fine. Otherwise you end up sounding like Peggy Hill (who does not use contractions, because of her mother). And you'll have needlessly created a really annoying, pervasive problem you'll have to fix in your editing, which is a time bomb waiting to complicate your editing process. Plus, it's easier (and more productive) just to write a new section than go through and have to turn contractions into two separate words.

Also, it seems that I spent the month choosing to write instead of going to the gym. Time to figure out how to get those activities to play nice with one another.

I learned how to write. Now I'm learning how to edit.

My other books have been stalled because before this, every time I sat down to write, I (over-)edited what I had already written. With nano, there's no time for that nonsense!

Also, I learned what 'tools' and 'writing habits' work best for me (and how much coffee might be too much - I never thought there WAS such a thing!).

It's like being in crisis mode - all the priorities bubble to the top, and the rest is just fluff you don't need. Everyone works differently, and I needed to find what worked best for me.

NaNoWriMo has been great, and I can't wait to do it again next year!

I've learned that I will finish anything if my family knows about it, because at the end of the day, even as a grown up, I still love to compete with my brothers for mom's attention. :P

I have learned...

1) Not to flip out if I go off my outline even a little bit.
2) I really, really hate fight scenes.
3) Slow and steady IS the best way for a romantic development...especially if one of your characters is the villain that your other character is after.
4) Research papers just get in the way.