I am so very, very done.
I finished NaNoWriMo 2005 with a ravishing total of 50,633 words. Of those, 24,725 were tossed together in the final week.
Key lessons learned:
- I accomplish more writing outside of my home than inside it.
- It is much, much better to make a little progress every day than to hope to catch up on weekends. So much other stuff happens on weekends. There’s no time to write.
- Butler County is lucky to be home to many interesting and friendly writers. There will be several books coming out of this area, if I’m not mistaken.
- Throwing in an arbitrary plot element, such as a chocolate gun, creates interesting problems and twists. I will be taking outsider suggestions more often in the future.
- Taking a book plan seriously makes it hard to write the book. Taking a deadline seriously makes it easy to get words on paper. It’s easy to confuse the two kinds of seriousness, and important to keep remembering their difference.
Incidentally, if you’d like to know to what depths my writing dropped in the quest to complete this project, here is the final paragraph of the manuscript:
Not moving his gun from my throat, he reached over and caught my chocolate covered fist. He raised it to his mouth, stuck out his tongue, closed his eyes, and licked.
Bravo Cindy! CONGRATULATIONS!
And, oh yes, that sample of writing is a fine specimen.
Mmmm. Chocolate!
Congrats!
Yay! You did it!
Congrats! Want to come over and finish my last 50K words??
Susan, I can indeed give you 50K words, but I’m afraid they will have no more than a passing conncection to your book. Do you want your novel to involve people hiding in attics and basements, kidnapping each other, and leaving dead people and pets in impossible places?
Well, I do like chocolate, but I see your point. Desperation to finish does strange things to a writer. :) Very cool you did it. Your ending was tantalizing.
Yea Cindy,
Glad you got it all done! I agree, sometimes you just have to finish it…love the chocolate gun. ARe you saying someone gave you that idea? I love getting tidbits from people that I work into my writing…and I love writing outside the home. Thank God for laptops. Winter Wonderland was great as all fatplum events are.