I WON NANOWRIMO! …but what now?
ft. ELLY’S SIX MONTH PLAN TO FINISH HER NOVEL
I DID IT! AFTER FOUR YEARS I FINALLY WON NANOWRIMO!
I wrote 50,000 words in 30 days!
(Actually, 50,338 words in 29 days to be exact.)
So…. now what?
By the end of November I may have written 50,000 words toward a novel, but that only put me about a third of the way through my story!
This is actually more common than you may realize. 50,000 words is incredible accomplishment, but that is also a short novel.
Naturally, I took the first week in December off — a well deserved break!
However, now that the week of relaxation is up, (thankfully) I am starting to feel the itch to write again.
Which brings me to:
ELLY’S SIX MONTH PLAN TO FINISH HER NOVEL
December:
It’s all about the LIGHT editing. I know I made numerous typos/grammatical errors such as “ALice” that I didn’t want to waste time correcting during November. This month I’d like to look back on everything I’ve written and just correct sparingly. No cutting huge chunks. Just fixing grammar mistakes/typos for my own sanity.
January/February:
KEEP WRITING! Ideally, I’d love to finish the first (VERY) rough draft of my novel. The first step to writing a novel is getting it ALL out on the page. Once I finally type “The End” I will finally feel accomplished and ready to continue to the editing process. Half the battle of writing a novel is just finishing it!
March:
More grammatical editing and plot tweaking. The first half of the month I’d like to get rid of all the pesky red and blue lines in my document. After that, I want to print it. The best way to see clear errors and make notes is on paper. The rest of the month shall be used to write all over that first draft! I want there to be more ink from my pen than ink from the novel on that paper. My rough draft will be extremely rough, so this is my chance to see what works and what doesn’t, cutting what can go and making notes on what needs to be added.
April:
Apply all the changes found during March! By the end of April I’d like to have a slightly less rough first draft of my novel. Whether that is just cutting and adding scenes, flushing out the story or cutting out whole chapters/characters, I want to see a serious improvement from where the novel was at the end of February.
May:
Relax and share the draft. I’d like the spend the first week or two away from the novel, clearing my head. The best way to do that is to get it out of my mind entirely so I can come back to it with a fresh mindset. Additionally, I’d like to send the final first draft off to trusted friends and family for their opinions, hopefully coming back with piles of notes for improvements.
Obviously, I don’t plan on my novel being perfect six months from now, but I’d like to have it be close. Although cliche, Rome wasn’t built in a day so how can I expect my novel to be perfect from the beginning?
Ultimately, by the time November 2017 rolls around, I’d like to have my novel completed to the best of my ability and ready to be shipped off to (hopefully) get published one day.
More than any other year in the past, I am so incredibly in love with my novel and want to take it all the way. It has been a dream of mine to publish a full length novel, and I feel like Imminent, has a brilliant chance at being my first.
How did you do during NaNoWriMo this year? Do you plan on finishing your story or adding it to the list of novels that never will see the light of day? Leave a response and let me know! I’d love to hear where all of you guys are at post NaNo!
Much Love,
Elly xx
THANKS FOR READING!
I’m Elly Pursel, university student, writer and filmmaker.
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