Now What?

So you finished NaNoWriMo and have a 50 000 word novel on your hands. Now what?

I won NaNoWriMo this year, and now I have a novel, the same as so many other NaNo winners. Some people need to actually finish their novels, because although they won NaNoWriMo, their novel is going to be longer than 50 000 words long. Good luck to you. Don’t slack off on your writing just yet.

As for the rest of us, now we have to get beta readers and start revising. I’ve got at least two beta readers who are running through my novel to find pacing problems, plot holes, characterization issues, and anything else that doesn’t make sense and needs to be fixed.

So, do you have a beta reader? I did a post on beta readers a while ago. But to sum it up, a beta reader is looking for loose ends in your draft and letting you know so that you can tie them up. Sometimes that means adding or deleting scenes, changing things around, or throwing your computer out the window. Try not to do that last one, because as frustrating as revisions can be, they are still necessary.

I already have tons of revisions in mind, because my draft was very bare-bones. All I was doing was trying to get those words down. Sometimes I got writer’s block, but I still had to forge ahead to get to the next milestone. This is the problem with a lot of NaNoWriMo drafts, because you’re plugging away and need to just spew the words on the page.

Well now is when you fix the problems you created during the writing process. At least you don’t have such a huge deadline for revisions. I would suggest, however, creating your own personal deadlines in order to make sure you actually finish it.

Revisions are hard, and sometimes you have to be hard on your draft. Like I said in my beta reader post, make sure you choose readers who aren’t afraid to hurt your feelings by pointing out problems.

I’m doing that right now, so fellow writers, we’re all in this together. Hang in there.

NaNoWriMo Close

This is it, everyone. The last day of NaNoWriMo 2015. I did it!

Some of us finished in the third week, like my friend Laurence. Some of us were madly writing away on the very last day with only a little bit more to go, like me. Some of us weren’t even close to finishing, but kept on writing anyways.

Congratulations to all of us. It’s a difficult challenge to write 50000 words in just one month. Even the decision to try to write a novel is a hard challenge to face, so I hope that you can look back on your work this month and be proud of yourself for what you have accomplished.

I had an interesting time of it. I wasn’t expecting to follow the set pattern of 1667 words a day, but I’ve stuck to it, which I haven’t done before. This is my third year participating in NaNoWriMo, and in the past, I’ve fallen behind and tried to finish thousands of words in one day. One year I managed to finish, and one year I didn’t. So I’m proud that I made a goal and I stuck to it this time.

This was definitely a year for firsts. This time, not only did I attend a write-in for NaNoWriMo, but I was the one to organize it. Now that I’ve done it once, I think I can possibly do it again.

Also, I did the first third of my writing in the hospital by hand, which was yet another challenge. I think that I’ve done pretty well.

So, yet another year comes to a close. I’ve got an entire 50 000 word novel to revise and get beta readers for. I already have all sorts of additions in mind, and it was difficult not to go and correct them during the writing process. But now I have scads of time to go do that.

So I’ll see you again next year everyone, and until then, I hope you can meet all your writing challenges with determination.

NaNoWriMo Crunch

It’s day 21 of NaNoWriMo, and I’m 36313 words into my NaNo novel. It’s been a steady upward battle for me this year, but at least I (probably) won’t be writing 12000 words in one day like I did one year.

I’ve found that my model of planning two chapters in advance works quite well for me because quite often, if I write a whole outline then sometimes the story will veer far off course and I’ll have to scrap it anyway.

I will definitely need to revise and edit a lot before I’m satisfied with my story, this one will be pretty bare bones when I finish it. Also, the story arc is nowhere close to being finished, so I’m thinking that this is definitely going to be a series. I haven’t written a series before, so this is going to be a steep learning curve for me, I think. I’m looking forward to it, and even have possible titles in the works.

Speaking of titles, I only have a working title for this story, so I’m going to need to try and figure out if I’m going to stick with that or change it. As a few of you may know, one of my strategies of coming up with a title is to create a mind map to try and figure out themes in my story and then find a title from that. I’ll probably wait until I’m done the novel to do that.

I got to host a write-in last night, which was fun. I’m starting to get the hang of organizing things, and I’ve often found it’s the taking of responsibility that is hard, rather than actually setting things up. That part was actually fairly easy. I also got to meet some local writers, which was great. I’m hoping to host another write in next week, so I’ll tell you how that goes later.

As for now, I’ll just keep plugging away at my word count. I’m a bit ahead of the game now, but there’s no time to relax until all 50000 words are done.

My NaNoWriMo 2015

Hey all, as you probably saw from my last post, I started off the first half of NaNoWriMo while I was in the hospital. Because of this, I had to start writing my project by hand! My sister bought be a notebook, and I started writing in that. It’s been years since I wrote longhand, so it was a bit tricky. But I managed!

nanobook

It’s day 16 (as I’m writing this), and I have 25000 words so far. I’m supposed to be at 26667, so I guess I’ll have to get on that after I finish this blog post. (To those of you worried about my dates, I’m scheduling this for the 18th, but wrote it the 16th).

What’s happened so far? My characters are shaping up nicely, which is always good. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to get a good voice for my characters without my notes that were on my computer, but I think I’m good on that front.

As for my plot, I’m generally a planner, but this year I had to do things a bit differently, so I’ve been using different tactics for my writing campaign. I’ve been planning only two chapters in advance, while the rest is all vague future plot points. It’s been working pretty well, even though I usually like making sure that I have the end plotted out. Who knows how this one will end!

nanobook2

A few other people I’ve noticed are also doing NaNoWriMo, so a shout out to them, especially my friend Laurence who probably has twice the amount of words that I have right now. He’s been steamrollering through this thing. I’ll be happy to finish this with 50 000 words.

I’m so glad that I’ve been able to write again. I thought I’d forgotten how to.

I still have half a novel to go, but the first half is great. I created a pronoun for my dragons which doesn’t actually have a human equivalent, so that’s fun. I’m going to have a great time trying to find a symbol that looks dragon-y and inserting it there.

I think I’ve gotten a bit better at character’s emotions, or maybe it’s actually my own emotions I’m better at, and it’s translating into writing. Whatever the reason, it seems to be working out for me.

As for the story, it’s going to have quite the arc, because a small thing that I had happen suddenly decided to become a whole revolution while I wasn’t looking, and will probably end up being a civil war… by the end of this novel. So it looks like I’ll possibly have a series on my hands, which is exciting, since I’ve never had one of those before.

I’m actually kind of excited, because there’s lots going on in this novel. It’s slightly steampunk, but also with dragons, because they have steam and coal power which is made easier, thanks to dragons.

I’m very excited, and I’m already looking for beta-readers to plot check it when I’m done.

If you want to follow my updates, I’m on twitter as @aa_powell

If anyone wants a short excerpt of this project (it’s unedited, so finished project might be a bit different) give me a page number in the comments or on Twitter and I’ll choose 50-100 words to post!

NaNoWriMo is coming!

Hey all, as fellow readers and writers, I’m sure you all know what NaNoWriMo is. For those who don’t, National Novel Writing Month takes place in November, and is the undertaken challenge of writing 50000 words in 30 days. It can be a gruelling challenge, especially for those with jobs or university and college classes. However, it is doable, and it can be very fun

.I first took part in the challenge in 2012, and I decided that I was going to write a novel about a vampire on a space station. For those of you who think that sounds familiar, you would be right. My novel Rangers over Regulus was written for NaNoWriMo that year, and it won! Yes, I wrote the last 12000 words on the last day, but I still won. I think my brain might have gone a little loopy, because when I reread chapter 8, I had no memory of having written it. Not only had I won the challenge, I also had a 50k word novel on my hands, writing finished, editing much needed.

In 2013, I didn’t win. I came very very close to winning, but fell short by just over 6000 words. So close! Although I didn’t win, the fact remains that at the end of November, I had 43000 words of a novel already written. And guess what? I finished that novel, and my publisher has accepted it for publication.

My point is, NaNoWriMo gets people writing, and it gets them churning out words by the thousands. Sometimes writers win the challenge – sometimes they don’t. But no matter how much a writer finishes by the end of the month, they have still accomplished something on their latest project, even if it’s finding out that their current project falls apart under pressure.

I’m hoping that this year is once again productive on the writing front, and that by the end of this November, I’ll have a good chunk of my next project finished – hopefully at least 50k words of it. This year, I’m writing about Ignius, an agender dragon and their dragonrider Kathely, who want to join an elite squadron known as Far Patrol. It should be fun to write, although probably won’t be the novel anyone is expecting – me least of all!

Join me on my quest to achieve noveldom!

I’m testosterone-tea on the NaNoWriMo site, and you can follow my progress on Twitter as well.

alex powell

Quills&Ink Cafe

nanowrimo 2015