November is over! Nano is over! It’s crazy to think that another amazing event of writers all over the world coming together to write a novel has come and gone, but here we are, on December 1st (or later, depending on when you read this).
I have maintained my streak of wins, mainly out of being stubborn. But, there is a part of me that feels like I didn’t win at all, though thankfully I’m not feeling that as much as I thought I would, especially now that the month is over, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Warning: the following is not meant to be bragging. I worried about spelling out the specifics, but felt it was ultimately more helpful to do so, rather than to keep things vague.
I went into the month with 3 main goals, and I achieved 2 of them, and came decently close to the 3rd. They were:
- Win earlier than I ever have
- Get through enough of my outline
- Write 300,000 words
The first 2 were rough, but were ultimately completed. Despite my loft goals of years past, I had never won before the 5th. This year, by kicking in that stubbornness I spoke of earlier, I managed to (barely) cross the 50K line on the 4th. And I had to write just shy of 23.5K on that Friday the 4th to do so. (I know, that’s a lot.)
But then, through a bunch of stuff happening throughout the month, despite being ahead of the pace I needed to get to my dream of 300K, I stalled. And I could never get going enough to make up the ground like I have in years past. Even then, I went into the past weekend still trying to push. This was the third time I went for 300K. I came close the first time in 2010 (my official total was 288,401), and by kicking it into high gear in 2016, by writing close to 35.5K on the last day of that Nano, I squeaked by with 300,025 words. But this year was 230,522. Still respectable, but not as big of a year as I would have hoped. (More on that in a minute.)
Yet, even though I didn’t write as much as I initially wanted, I did make it through my outline (enough, as there were some things dropped or made redundant by the time I actually got around to writing it) to get my two MCs married by the end. The timeline took us through almost 3 full years of stuff, so I wasn’t sure I would make it in the end, part of the reason I thought I’d need the 300K to get there.
I somehow realized that my 2 previous attempts at 300K happened to fall every sixth year of me doing Nano. (Yes, this was year 18 for me.) That was also one of the reasons I pushed myself to go for it this year. I might not have made it, but this was my 3rd best year overall, and the 4th where I wrote at least 200K. I look forward to taking it “easy” next year, but it will be at the end of what should be a successful 12 Months, 12 Genres, so overall, I’ll have written 600K+ for the year, if all goes right.
It’ll be nice to have some rest before 2023 kicks in. Meetings of my writing/critique group resume next week. 2022 is almost over, but this writer will forever remain busy.