NaNoWriMo Winner! How does it feel?

          I have to be honest and say that NaNoWriMo was grueling. It started out well. I didn’t know I could write that much so fast and it was gratifying to find out that I could. I certainly learned a lot about myself during NaNoWriMo.
          I learned that I could write pages and pages every day and not just when some muse wandered by. I could be disciplined about my writing. I found out that my characters came alive and started dictating the story to me. That was a great discovery. My characters were practically writing my novel for me!
          But I also learned that you can’t write well when you write fast and I’m not proud of the writing that I produced. I hope to be once I’ve revised the novel once or twice, but for now, it’s terrible. Finally, I learned that it’s highly stressful to write 50,000 words in one month and even though I did it, I'm glad it’s over.

NaNoWriMo Break

     I am now over 30,000 words and I realized last thursday that I made a tactical error after I finished writing for the day.
     A word of advice for other NaNoWriMoers, don't make the mistake I made. Don't read through what you've written so far. It's terrible stuff, it's the first draft and it created an overwhelming urge in me to revise.
     So I had to stop writing for a couple of days in order to get back to the mindset necessary for pumping out 50,000 words in a month. I've decided I'm going to put my work away for a month in December and let the dust settle. Then I'll come back to it.
     I have a new mantra when I start writing tomorrow.
     It's "Revise in January! Revise in January!"

NaNoWriMo; 1st update

    I am loving the NaNoWriMo experience. I am sure part of why it’s been so positive for me is because of timing. Perfect timing.
    I finished my first novel, The Adventures of Marcus Tuttle, three months ago. I had the idea for my next novel three years ago, but I discovered that I couldn't work on two projects concurrently. So I only did research for this novel. I also thought about it.  The ideas, the plot and the characters have been percolating in my brain for a long, long time.
    I was nervous when I started NaNoWriMo that I wouldn’t be able to write a 50,000 page novel in four weeks, but it turns out that this book is pouring out of me like a spurting water fountain. Today I hit 23,000 words and It’s only been a week.
    So what I love most about NaNoWriMo is that it gives me permission to write down crap. I'm fine with that. I realize that I’ll have to revise everything anyway but at least now I’ll have a few words to work with. I hope anyone else doing NaNoWriMo is getting a positive experience out of it. Go NaNoWriMoers!