I Won NaNoWriMo — Never Again!
Once was quite enough
I’m back again — after a month of writing my novel to the grand total of 50,050 words (estimated — more on that below) I can say I have achieved my goal.
I tried once and failed. I tried again and succeeded. And that’s enough for me.
Discovery Writing
I’ve written about this before, so I don’t wish to repeat myself — but in summary: the value of NaNo is that it motivates you to write. A lot.
And that’s it.
You can only get better at writing by writing, just like any other skill.
The 50,000 word target is neither here nor there. However, since it is there, I decided to keep to it. I’m serious about writing a novel, so I need some idea of word count.
Needless to say, 50k is a lot! And 30 days is not a long time to write it in, especially around full time work (and a weekend of stock taking) I had no time to write anything else. Not even my diary. It’s a pity I didn’t keep a diary of how the story actually progressed because it developed so significantly. Characters emerged, changed, gained names and lost them, spoke and then contradicted themselves… I am pleased with the result (even if it is a bit of a mess).
Writing is a solitary and mysterious thing. It’s strange how a character can appear and then change the course of the story.
Two characters who did not exist in ink before the 1st November had, by the 27th become the centre of the story. Sadly, one of them was supposed to die but I had become too ‘attached’ to them to let that happen! It’s difficult to explain to non-writers how characters who you have created and have complete control over, end up taking the story into their own hands…
I also discovered an entirely separate story about actors and the theatre, while writing a Western — so really, anything is possible.
Where to write
I’m glad that I participated this year because it proved to myself that I can write decent prose even in distracting environments. At work at breaktime with people chattering, perhaps even at one’s desk… It reminds me of something Virginia Woolf wrote in ‘A Room of One’s Own’ that many women authors, such as Jane Austen, were writing in places where they could be interrupted or overlooked (they did not have a room of their own to write in). It’s interesting how this affects what you write about. I only really felt able to write descriptions and light dialogue while at work. And after a day’s work, in the evenings I wasn’t writing intricately plotted and clever prose. It’s an interesting thought how the environment affects your writing. Luckily, I am not interrupted at home; but a lot of people have busy homes where concentration is difficult so 50k may not be possible for them.
‘…the middle-class family in the early nineteenth century was possessed only of a single sitting-room between them. If a woman wrote, she would have to write in the common sitting-room. And, as Miss Nightingale was so vehemently to complain, — “women never have an half hour… that they can call their own” — she was always interrupted. Still it would be easier to write prose and fiction there than to write poetry or a play. Less concentration is required. Jane Austen wrote like that to the end of her days. “How she was able to effect all this,” her nephew writes in his Memoir, “is surprising, for she had no separate study to repair to, and most of the work must have been done in the general sitting-room, subject to all kinds of casual interruptions. She was careful that her occupation should not be suspected by servants or visitors or any persons beyond her own family party. Jane Austen hid her manuscripts or covered them with a piece of blotting-paper[…] Without boasting or giving pain to the opposite sex, one may say that Pride and Prejudice is a good book. At any rate, one would not have been ashamed to have been caught in the act of writing Pride and Prejudice. Yet Jane Austen was glad that a hinge creaked, so that she might hide her manuscript before anyone came in. To Jane Austen there was something discreditable in writing Pride and Prejudice. And, I wondered, would Pride and Prejudice have been a better novel if Jane Austen had not thought it necessary to hide her manuscript from visitors? I read a page or two to see; but I could not find any signs that her circumstances had harmed her work in the slightest. That, perhaps, was the chief miracle about it.’
Writing Materials
I also used the opportunity of NaNoWriMo to try different things. Listening to the Spotify playlist you created specifically for the story? No way. Listening to Stock Aitken and Waterman eighties pop? Of course! (I’m writing a Western btw) I usually don’t listen to music but something with a fast tempo was intended to speed up my writing.
I wrote by hand. So my 50,050 is very much an estimation. But I learnt a few things. I like to write on plain A4 paper in pen. Not lined paper, not pencil and ideally not A5. I wrote the most when writing on plain paper in pen. I used different coloured pens for each section.
Unexpected Strengths & Expected Weaknesses
Somehow I manage to be unconsciously alliterative. The various names of this Horse With No Name all begin with P. When I looked at the list, I recalled the Frank Sinatra song, where he’d been a ‘puppet, pauper, pirate, poet, pawn and a king’ — which added the name ‘Poet’ to the list of Pilgrim, Pioneer etc. Strange how a seemingly irrelevant technique — one that I use in my poetry — turned out to be useful in prose.
Weaknesses are inconsistent tone (I can’t even decide whether the horse is to narrate the story or just to write in third person!) and lack of coherence due to lack of planning.
Quality vs Quantity
I’ve gone back and forth on this question and eventually I can say that you can’t get to the quality without the quantity. Quality isn’t the main concern on a first draft, especially if you are still developing the story, the point is to write 50k words — not necessarily 50k good words.
Obviously, the words I have written this November are not my best. But some of them are okay, some are good and there were a few moments of very good. One issue with writing at speed, with no time to read over what I wrote the day before, is that it means writing out of sequence since I had very little plan and simply wrote whatever came into my head — quite like a stream of consciousness. This led to some repetition so I probably have five different descriptions of plains, deserts and sunsets in this 50k — but never mind! Turner painted lots of landscapes…
So, at 50k I have a pretty but hefty hodge-podge of writing. I have red, black, light blue and green pages in a ring-binder folder. I like to flick through the pages and say — ‘This is my novel in progress.’ It’s important that it’s a physical item, not just a Word document. I honestly think it’s beneficial for one’s mental wellbeing to have hard copy pages; there’s a greater sense of achievement if you can actually see it. Also handwritten pages, even if your handwriting is a scrawl like mine, look nicer than typed pages. It will be typed up eventually but I try my best to avoid screens where possible.
I also forgot to ‘back up’ this work by taking photos of the pages so let’s hope no water gets spilt over it….
So after over a year of debating it — I do recommend NaNoWriMo. It is difficult but there is a great sense of achievement at the end.
The last words of the last page that I wrote — aptly, the chapter is called ‘Last Resort’ (I believe the name ‘Last Chance’ has already been taken) — ‘something about [the situation] seemed right, but much was also amiss.’
A fairly good description of first drafts in general.
To finish, although there may be many other things going on in one’s own life or in the world, as writer Roshani Chokshi says,
‘Look, you don’t have to dismantle tyrannical governments with the power of your written word to justify telling a story. What I had dismissed as my own “silly little book” […] is anything but that. Joy is defiant. Imagination is rebellion. To wring a silver lining out of thunderstorms isn’t for the faint of heart. What you are doing is brave and meaningful.’
Pheobe.
