NaNoWriMo 2014

So although posts have been scheduled here, I haven't actually been around or writing much in the way of future posts - meaning that December might be quiet. This is because I was doing NaNoWriMo. This stands for National Novel Writing Month (even though it is international). You write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days, averaging out at 1667 words per day. This isn't the length of a complete novel but for me it's around two-thirds of a Young Adult novel.

I attempt Nano a lot of years but have actually only managed the goal twice previously - way back in 2005 and 2006. But this year I had a lot of a novel that was swimming round in my head so I took the plunge - and seemed to take it much more seriously than before. My friend Stephanie had a chat room where we would sprint for small stretches and battle for the most words. That really helped me along, but mostly it was a hard slog.

I had a couple of days off when I was too busy to be at my computer, but I managed to have only 3,000 words remaining on Thursday night, so I decided to finish on Saturday the 29th so that I could have Sunday free for Christmas things. I managed it! I validated my word count at around 8pm on Saturday.

The last week was brutal, and all through the month I haven't slept very well. I'm recovering slowly - I slept til noon yesterday and til 11 today. I pushed myself and my physical and mental health will suffer for a bit.

But! The novel is there! It isn't perfect. It will need editing and babying to perfection. But I can do that. I am planning to not even open it until after Christmas, and then spend January editing and working on it.

I am so proud of myself - it's quite an achievement :)