Apologies for being MIA but I have been so busy participating in NaNoWriMo and guess what, it's all done! I wrote 50,567 words in 29 days and although my story was rather rubbish; accomplishing my goal of writing a 50k novel in November feels great.
NaNoWriMo is short for 'National November Writing Month'. It's been my second year taking part and I love it. Thousands of people all over the world participate and I love the atmosphere and craziness that comes along with it. Writing 50,000 words in 30 days is a challenge. We all have work, studies or family commitments but the biggest challenge is having a story in mind. The point is to write your 50k in November, spill the story and not to edit until after you've completed the 50,000 words. After November, you can go back to edit and revise it but during the month you lock your inner editor and throw away the key.
Whilst I was writing this time round I realised that I have so many bad writing habits! My main weakness is lack of research and character sketches. I ended up mixing personality traits of one character in another, and it all got rather muddled up. I won't be revisiting this story to clean it up because there were way too many holes, but at least now I know that going forwards I must have a proper plan.
I love writing but there's always a fear of putting words to paper because what if my stories are garbage? NaNoWriMo has taught me to be less afraid and just give it a try. If you mess up and write a crappy story, oh well, write another one and keep writing until one day you write one that's worth reading.
Zed (:
Congratulations! Such an awesome achievement - I wish I could do it. :)
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