NaNoWriMo Wrap Up 2011

I know it’s not even over yet, but for me it’s time to wrap up this year’s NaNoWriMo. Nopes, I did not finish, I usually don’t finish (I managed to do it once), and as per usual I’m completely fine with that. Because I wrote SOMETHING, which is the most important thing. It’s like Mia*** said: You can write when it’s not November, too. It’s ok.

This year I wrote 22k something words on a story I named Pixie Dust. It’s a messy mix of a lot of my earlier ideas and involves the notion of stardom and the act of storytelling and the power of peoples made up conceptions. Hopefully it will end up being some sort of urban fantasy fiction and hopefully I will keep writing on it. I even got to incorporate a couple of old notes I’ve had in a notebook for years. Very satisfying.

True, I didn’t get very far, but started a lot of unfinished chapters. I know how they’re gonna end anyway so it’s a matter of sitting down and filling in the blanks. I think one of my problems this year was that I felt the need to write more carefully and purposefully. I can’t put my finger on why, I just didn’t have it in me with this one to fill it out with randomness. Let the story take its time. And there just wasn’t any room for that this year (and it’s like, the opposite purpose of the whole exercise). I never learn: November is my busiest month every year and I always add NaNoWriMo to it.

So, my biggest accomplishment this year was to donate some money to the project and order the NaNoWriMo ceramic travel mug. And it is AWESOME. Because it is ceramic it feels like I’m constantly walking around town with a regular cup of tea from my kitchen. It feels very homey. Now If I could just get away with going to work in slippers and PJ’s too, the illusion would be complete and I could possibly fool myself into believe I really never left home, and all would be well.

November 25th, 2011 | Tags: , | Category: In English, NaNoWriMo | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)

NaNoWriMo on my Doorstep

Okay folks, this is not a drill. It’s just a few hours until midnight, until November, and with it NaNoWriMo.

I gotta say; I’ve tried this thing for many years now in any way possible, it feels like I’ve been trying to cure a severe case of the hiccups (“No, you should try and write it upside down, that should do it!”). I’ve written in Swedish, I’ve written in English, I’ve mixed the two up completely. I’ve tried planning everything to the nail, and I’ve gone all Lord of the Flies on my arse and not planned anything at all. I’ve written by hand, I’ve written in Notepad, and I’ve used some sort of software. Night time, daytime, chocolate, wine, electrical shortage, network outage, theme music from action movies and dramas, instrumental, opera, utter silence. Many tries and only one “win”, and even then it wasn’t all that great, mostly just poop on a page (or many pages, although, I’ve never actually printed any of it out, so it’s digital… oh, never mind).

The word count has varied a great deal every year. 10k, 25, 37… and that one time I actually finished. One unusually grim November I wrote three pages (but when I look back at them I sort of like them, so I don’t mind).

For me it’s always been a lot about just starting, just writing, and if I make it I make it. But anything I produce is most probably more than I usually write in a month nowadays, if you only count creative writing and storytelling.

This year I have my notebook full of almost unreadable scribbles of about 7-8 different stories and characters. As I flipped through them today I felt a bit downhearted. Use one of them? Come up with something new? No plot, no problem, right? Also, I realised I could basically base all the characters loosely on an aspect of myself. Slightly unnerving (“Write what you know!” screams my inner editor in the voice of Joey’s agent in “Friends”… why is that?!).

Then I had that completely wonderful moment when I saw a very specific theme in all of them and suddenly I saw no problem using ALL of them all at once.

Go me.

So that’s what I’ll do. All my little characters can come play. Nobody have to feel left out. Although at least one of them will get killed off, of course.

Hey, this is 414 words already, can I use them?

October 31st, 2011 | Tags: , , | Category: In English, NaNoWriMo | Comments are closed

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