I failed National Novel Writing Month
6 years ago
Oof. What a year. I feel like it went by like a shot out of a cannon, but secretly it was a year long? Like...did anyone else remember we had a winter olympics this year? Yeesh. Speaking of things going by in a blur, I originally intended this to be a small journaling about my experience with NaNo this year, but the holidays happened and now it’s the end of the year 😂 So here we are!
So. I’m sure I’m not the only one that will have admitted this, but I tried undertaking NaNoWriMo last month and...well, I fell short.
By like five thousand words.
WELP.
I was so close!! It STILL bugs the shit out of me two weeks later hahaha. I would have loved to have come here, thumping my chest saying HAHA, LOOK AT ME, I DID IT. And then I’d ask myself “But Jack, how did you do it?”
And then I’d say: I cheated!
My plan was to rewrite my original 2008ish NaNo attempt, Black Sunshine, an old-by-now piece that was in sore need of an update. The original piece as it sits in my gallery adds up to around 20-25k words, so I basically took a section of the original novel, and wrote it again, but with more of my style as it is now vs when I was younger. Once I reached the end of the what I’d already written, I’d use the “momentum” to propel me through the other 25k. So it wouldn’t be a wholly original, off-the-top-of-my-head novel, but a novel I’d already started with an “easy” section to start, which is kinda cheaty in my book.
I thought it was a good plan! And I learned quite a bit taking on this challenge.
My main problem as a writer is keeping consistent focus on the material I’m writing. I get very easily distracted, and if I encounter the slightest bit of friction in my creative process, I “give myself a break” by going to my phone to check Twitter, Facebook, etc, only to end up on YouTube watching a 20 minute video of some sort. I’d realize I wasn’t doing any work, get back to it, bump into the same friction, rinse repeat. No wonder I didn’t get anything done.
But! Of late, I found this guy named Thomas Frank on YouTube who runs a really neat channel that’s branded as a college student aid guide, but his content surrounds productivity, studying, and being able to work with intense focus - all topics I needed a LOT of help in. And through his content, I picked up quite a few tools that I started practicing, namely the Pomodoro Technique.
This method has helped me focus a LOT. I got so used to it that I actually had a moment during my NaNo writing where I wasn’t sure how to proceed with a scene or a bit of dialogue, I went reaching for my phone and immediately caught myself and said nonono, I am in the middle of a Pomodoro, I am going to finish this out! And went back to my problem, moved past it, and continued writing.
As for the writing itself...blech. Another thing I learned about NaNo is the pace you have to write at. Using the website, in order to write a 50,000 word novel, you have to write 1,667 words a day. I work 9 hours or more on a typical day, so after taking care of chores and such, it would leave an average of 2-3 hours, depending on the weekday. On the extreme end, I had 15 minutes to write before bed, only to fall short and be forced to make up the word count the next day. I also fondly remember crushing 1667 words in thirty minutes, going off of previously written text, and PHEW were my forearms sore after that. I was typing at the top end of my words-per-minute count for stretches of writing, and with that speed came a lot of spelling mistakes and another valuable lesson from NaNo.
Don’t go back to fix your mistakes, and don’t go back to rewrite what you already wrote. I have a problem with perfectionism, in that if I can’t produce the final draft from the first time I laid word to paper, then I wouldn’t write it. Which, obviously, is an impossible way to write lmao, so I committed to the lesson, and what feels like half of the document is just...lit up with red underscores. I also capitalized on this teaching to just write whatever I wanted. I’d use the start of the writing session as a stream-of-consciousness journaling time, to collect my thoughts, what I was feeling about the novel at the time, and also to complain about how bad my old writing was :U Sometimes I’d even just stop in the middle of a sentence to write a random thought and keep going.
Speaking of differences between my writing then and now: OOF was there a massive difference lmao. I had a huuuuuge problem with run-on sentences back in the day, to the point that entire paragraphs were whole sentences. On style, I focused a little too intensely on details that didn’t matter (talking about how loud a car was as a way to convey how fast said car was moving instead of...writing a detail about how fast the car was moving, heh), and just...ugh. 🤢 It disgusts me to even think about it now, but there was some really, really edgy, pseudo-tough-guy stuff that just falls hilariously flat when I go back and read it. There was even a few jokes that I’m really not too proud of, and suffice it to say, I can’t take the old chapters down fast enough.
As I approached the end of the material I had written originally, I had a feeling the real test of NaNo would come when I hit the end of the stuff I’d already written. I did what I could, laying out a detailed outline before I reached the end of the original novel, but even then, my word count absolutely tanked after I reached 20k. I made significant strides in being able to produce a word count in the first place, but it still wasn’t quite enough to hit the pace I needed to meet my NaNo goals. When I came to that realization, I started throwing in what I called “side writing” - which is anything I wrote with my good friend and editor
, which resulted in a much needed boost, but in the last day of November, with a little under 5,000 words left to write..I knew it wasn’t gonna happen.
But hey, that’s what I get for cheating. 🤷♂️
Some bonus Thomas Frank content, my personal favorite video of his.
And some really fast speed rap that helped me through my writing sessions where I needed to crank!
Alright, that last one’s less speed, but damn does it bang 🤔
Did you take on NaNo? How did you make out?
So. I’m sure I’m not the only one that will have admitted this, but I tried undertaking NaNoWriMo last month and...well, I fell short.
By like five thousand words.
WELP.
I was so close!! It STILL bugs the shit out of me two weeks later hahaha. I would have loved to have come here, thumping my chest saying HAHA, LOOK AT ME, I DID IT. And then I’d ask myself “But Jack, how did you do it?”
And then I’d say: I cheated!
My plan was to rewrite my original 2008ish NaNo attempt, Black Sunshine, an old-by-now piece that was in sore need of an update. The original piece as it sits in my gallery adds up to around 20-25k words, so I basically took a section of the original novel, and wrote it again, but with more of my style as it is now vs when I was younger. Once I reached the end of the what I’d already written, I’d use the “momentum” to propel me through the other 25k. So it wouldn’t be a wholly original, off-the-top-of-my-head novel, but a novel I’d already started with an “easy” section to start, which is kinda cheaty in my book.
I thought it was a good plan! And I learned quite a bit taking on this challenge.
My main problem as a writer is keeping consistent focus on the material I’m writing. I get very easily distracted, and if I encounter the slightest bit of friction in my creative process, I “give myself a break” by going to my phone to check Twitter, Facebook, etc, only to end up on YouTube watching a 20 minute video of some sort. I’d realize I wasn’t doing any work, get back to it, bump into the same friction, rinse repeat. No wonder I didn’t get anything done.
But! Of late, I found this guy named Thomas Frank on YouTube who runs a really neat channel that’s branded as a college student aid guide, but his content surrounds productivity, studying, and being able to work with intense focus - all topics I needed a LOT of help in. And through his content, I picked up quite a few tools that I started practicing, namely the Pomodoro Technique.
This method has helped me focus a LOT. I got so used to it that I actually had a moment during my NaNo writing where I wasn’t sure how to proceed with a scene or a bit of dialogue, I went reaching for my phone and immediately caught myself and said nonono, I am in the middle of a Pomodoro, I am going to finish this out! And went back to my problem, moved past it, and continued writing.
As for the writing itself...blech. Another thing I learned about NaNo is the pace you have to write at. Using the website, in order to write a 50,000 word novel, you have to write 1,667 words a day. I work 9 hours or more on a typical day, so after taking care of chores and such, it would leave an average of 2-3 hours, depending on the weekday. On the extreme end, I had 15 minutes to write before bed, only to fall short and be forced to make up the word count the next day. I also fondly remember crushing 1667 words in thirty minutes, going off of previously written text, and PHEW were my forearms sore after that. I was typing at the top end of my words-per-minute count for stretches of writing, and with that speed came a lot of spelling mistakes and another valuable lesson from NaNo.
Don’t go back to fix your mistakes, and don’t go back to rewrite what you already wrote. I have a problem with perfectionism, in that if I can’t produce the final draft from the first time I laid word to paper, then I wouldn’t write it. Which, obviously, is an impossible way to write lmao, so I committed to the lesson, and what feels like half of the document is just...lit up with red underscores. I also capitalized on this teaching to just write whatever I wanted. I’d use the start of the writing session as a stream-of-consciousness journaling time, to collect my thoughts, what I was feeling about the novel at the time, and also to complain about how bad my old writing was :U Sometimes I’d even just stop in the middle of a sentence to write a random thought and keep going.
Speaking of differences between my writing then and now: OOF was there a massive difference lmao. I had a huuuuuge problem with run-on sentences back in the day, to the point that entire paragraphs were whole sentences. On style, I focused a little too intensely on details that didn’t matter (talking about how loud a car was as a way to convey how fast said car was moving instead of...writing a detail about how fast the car was moving, heh), and just...ugh. 🤢 It disgusts me to even think about it now, but there was some really, really edgy, pseudo-tough-guy stuff that just falls hilariously flat when I go back and read it. There was even a few jokes that I’m really not too proud of, and suffice it to say, I can’t take the old chapters down fast enough.
As I approached the end of the material I had written originally, I had a feeling the real test of NaNo would come when I hit the end of the stuff I’d already written. I did what I could, laying out a detailed outline before I reached the end of the original novel, but even then, my word count absolutely tanked after I reached 20k. I made significant strides in being able to produce a word count in the first place, but it still wasn’t quite enough to hit the pace I needed to meet my NaNo goals. When I came to that realization, I started throwing in what I called “side writing” - which is anything I wrote with my good friend and editor
, which resulted in a much needed boost, but in the last day of November, with a little under 5,000 words left to write..I knew it wasn’t gonna happen.But hey, that’s what I get for cheating. 🤷♂️
Some bonus Thomas Frank content, my personal favorite video of his.
And some really fast speed rap that helped me through my writing sessions where I needed to crank!
Alright, that last one’s less speed, but damn does it bang 🤔
Did you take on NaNo? How did you make out?
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I only managed about 5,000! I'm in a hell of a scene to write right now, completely riddled by "damnit everyone's got this mess going on and now I need to determine the best outcome, write it, in advance.. crap".