This morning my word count hit 50,308. So that’s it – I’ve reached the NaNoWriMo target of 50,000 words in 30 days and with a day in hand. 🥳
It’s been an interesting experiment and one that, in the main, I’ve enjoyed.
So what now?
To be honest I don’t know – What I do know is that I haven’t yet written a novel, not even close.
WHAT HAVE I GOT?
- An uncompleted and rough (very rough) first draft.
- Two interesting characters.
- A plot of sorts – It has a beginning and a middle, but no ending yet.
WHAT HAVE I LEARNED?
- I can be far more productive that I thought possible (goals and deadlines work)
- Stories can indeed ‘write themselves’ …. sort of. ( There were many days when I had no idea what I was going to write about, but once I started, events and dialogue just ‘appeared’.)
- For the above to happen you just start typing!
- Not to edit as I write.
WHAT DO I DO NOW?
- Carry on with the first draft (the story hasn’t run its course, I think it’ll need another 20 or 30 thousand words to finish well).
- Set a target of 1st Jan 2021 to get that finished.
Those NaNoWriMo folks are scheming buggers you know. They intice you in with talk of a little challenge, it’ll only take 30 days they say, it’ll be fun they say.
Well I took the bait and now it’s too late – I’m hooked.
Congratulations, Neil. That’s something I have yet to achieve. No mean feet! Well done, mate! There’s life in the old dog! 🤣 Hopefully, it will be something worth publishing.