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!

Musician

Here is another drawing that I'm happy with. The process of drawing is so engrossing but then you are done. Sigh. I find that I don't have such an emotional attatchment to my artwork after it's finished as I do while I'm working on it. The intensity of looking and the importance of concentrating while drawing is intense and I love that feeling, but when it's over, it's over. So, on to the next one!

NaNoWriMo Jumpstart

      Last night I took a class called the NaNoWriMo Jumpstart.
M. Molly Backes was the instructor and started us off with exercises intended to get us brainstorming about the time and place of our novel “to be”.
     Then she led us through an exercise where we wrote our main character’s #1 goal inside a circle, the #1  main opposition to that goal in another circle and the #1 fear of our main character in the final circle.
     Then we wrote multiple secondary goals around circle #1, secondary oppositions around #2 and secondary fears around the last circle.
     Lastly, we wrote possible scenes and situations around all the goals, oppositions and fears.    
     The final exercise was  based on a writing exercise where an author is supposed to write for ten minutes without stopping or censoring themselves. However, Molly had us do that exercise from our main character’s POV. I enjoyed this one. It helped to get a sense of the voice of the character and after a while I found the character started to tell me how the story should go.
     All in all, I thought it was a successful NaNoWriMo Jumpstart.
     I’m excited for NaNoWriMo to start, but is anyone else out there doing NaNoWriMo feel as nervous as I do? I feel like telling myself to fasten my seat belt because its gonna be a wild ride!