I’ve had bad Nanowrimos and good Nanowrimos (and Camp Nanowrimos), as well as years when I couldn’t do Nanowrimo at all due to my schedule or a personal issue.
I had no idea when this one started on November 1st which kind of Nano it would turn out to be. I’d decided on writing short stories and also some short essays (this is the weird self-help project I mentioned in my last post). As with all Nanowrimos, hope reigned supreme at the start. I knew I’d be writing the final two stories in the SDS Robots series, and then maybe start on the self-help thing, and then...
Well, I have good news. I finished the first drafts of the SDS Robots stories at 10,000 and 16,000 words apiece and also the weird self-help short book at 9,000 or so words. In the last ten days of the month I had to scramble to think of what to do for the final 15,000 or so words to make it to 50,000.
For years I’ve written story ideas down in a notebook.
This notebook dates back before The Queendoms Series, the first book of which was published in 2014. The idea for Kaminishi: Four Seasons, which was published in 2015, is written down in this notebook.
I’ve written a lot of short story ideas in this notebook. So I went through them, trying to find the one that sounded the most exciting and also the one that I felt the most ready to write.
One idea I’ve had for forever was a science fiction story about a female assassin. I chose that idea and began working on it.
... And I finished the first draft. It came in at just over 6,000 words. I still needed more words to get to 50,000, so I wrote content for two of my websites (not this blog or my anime blog, but websites I own that haven’t been updated in years), and posts for this writing blog and my anime blog that are “evergreen” - in other words general and not time-sensitive so I can use them anytime.
In the final three days I still needed more words to get to 50,000. I couldn’t believe it. At that point Nano felt like an escape room where you have to solve puzzles to get out, only to find yourself in a room with more puzzles, with another room to come after that.
I returned to the pink notebook and feverishly looked through the story ideas again. I chose another idea that’s been in there for a while, a science fiction story about mutant carp attacks (really). That one felt like it would be a humorous story and I was ready for light and humorous by that point, so I began on it.
Strangely, the mutant carp story began turning more serious than humorous. I hit 50,000 words before I could finish it, but I’m interested in how it’s going to end (I don’t know myself yet).
So the final tally was 50,134 words, comprised of the following first drafts:
-- Four short stories (three and a half actually, since the carp story is unfinished): the final two SDS Robots stories for Evernight Publishing, plus two science-fiction stories that I’ll submit to magazines next year
-- One weird short book of self-help essays
-- Updated content for two websites
-- Blog posts to use in future
In other words... this was one of the most satisfying Nanowrimos I’ve had in a while. I got a whole lot of writing done. I think the fact that it was a number of short pieces really helped me to keep moving, keep writing words, because the variety helped. The regular way of doing Nano is to write 50,000 words of a novel. I’ve done that before and I really noticed the difference this time with the short stories, essays, and posts. I just kept moving on to the next without ever feeling bogged down.
It was still a lot of work. While I’m happy with the results, I had to do my writing around my full-time contract job and everything else in my life. I had evenings where I was like, I am so tired. Why don’t I stop short of the word count tonight. And I did less than the daily par - which is 1667 words - on two days during Thanksgiving week when I simply couldn’t force myself to write more.
One trick that helped was getting ahead in the first half of the month. I had a number of 2,000+ word days in the first week or two. I also tried to get 2,000 words on Saturdays and Sundays, succeeding at least some of the time.
I’ll be doing a lot of editing in December and January. I’ll work on Tales of the Queendoms first, then the two SDS Robots stories, and then the others.
If this is any indication, I’ll have many new releases next year. I have a feeling of momentum right now like I could keep writing regularly regardless of my job or other distractions. Let’s hope this continues!
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