Writing Update #16: Reflecting on NaNoWriMo
When I set out to do NaNoWriMo this year, I kind of figured I’d hit a point where I didn’t write every day. I’ve attempted to “compete” in National Novel Writing Month before and I’ve never been able to actually complete it. And this year, it felt like an even wilder goal because I wanted to continue working on both of my works in progress.
But I am pleased to share that I did it. Not only did I write every day of November, I actually wrote 50,000 new words . I truly can’t believe it and as someone who never feels like what I achieve is enough, I want to say that I am very proud of myself.
I spent months preparing for November to be able to have the time and mental space to dedicate to writing every single day and not feeling like I was giving up essential time for my freelance work. Try as I might to keep myself to a 9-5 schedule, the reality is that I struggle with when to turn off work for the day. Working for myself is a HUGE blessing and truly my dream, but it definitely is hard to find work/life balance.
However, I think I found a good rhythm in November and learned a lot about myself as a writer. Am I any closer to publishing? Not really. But having the books finished is the first step and we’re 50% of the way there! Yes, that means one book is done. Ah!
What Helped Me:
Having a concrete, but attainable, goal—I aimed to write 1,000 words per day. That could be 500 in one project, 500 in the other, or 1,000 in one. I almost always wrote over this goal, averaging 1300 words per day but some days i wrote over 5,000! It was exciting to hold myself accountable without making it impossible.
Recording my word count in my Bullet Journal—I loved my writing spread this month!
Documenting the Process—Sharing that I’m writing is always scary. I’m sure people roll their ideas at the updates and don’t care, but documenting the process made me actively think about how I was going to fit writing into my day and how the choices I made throughout the day effected my writing.
What I Learned:
I can do hard things. It sounds lame, but 90% of writing is discipline. I have never written this many days in a row and I absolutely LOVED it.
Total Word Count:
Project One: Solo Project
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Feels Like: The Simple Wild meets People We Meet On Vacation
Word Count: 28,681 of 90,000—Draft 1 was around 90k and I’ve edited that much!
Project Two: Co-Writing with Amber, Dual POV
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Fiction with Romance Elements
Feels Like: American Royals meets Mom Jeans and Other Mistakes
Word Count: 52,209* of Draft 1
*Since this book is dual POV, I’m almost done! We’re hoping to have 90-100k words total so I don’t need to write much more!
I’m going to keep writing throughout December but I’m definitely going to give myself a couple days off to let my brain (and fingers) rest. Thank you for following along! I hope I get to share these stories one day.