Eight Things I've Learnt About Working on the NaNoWriMo Challenge

I feel I must start with my apologies as I commence this post. It has been some weeks since I have written, largely due to the subject I want to deal with today, namely National Novel in a Month 2013. My time has been taken up in the preparation for this challenge and then in the work on it.

This challenge first started in the United States 13 years ago, (which is where the word in the title National comes in) the object being for each contestant to attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days, those 30 days being the month of November.

I have tried for the past 2 years to reach this magic total and failed miserably. Both years failures were for a perfectly good reason - as someone with chronic fatigue syndrome, there are times when it is not a good idea to push yourself. Nevertheless, it left me with this urge to succeed one day in this challenge.

This year, I succeeded, much to my joy. The whole process was a novel experience and I learnt lots. Please see my little list below for more detail. Recently I have read articles showing scepticism that typing so intensively over 30 days can produce anything useful. To them I say I now have something I can edit and decide for myself it's usefulness, whether to send it to a publisher or not. But that wasn't the reason it was done. Like climbing Everest, I did it because it was there.

1.  I can Write!
This first thing was a biggie for me. As the days went on, to actually realise that I can sit down on a day to day basis and type something, whether it was 400 words or 2,000. It gave me great confidence, which still buzzes on today, a week after finishing the challenge.

2.  It is possible to write most days, if not every day.
Even though I did have other things to do, as we all have, I discovered that wanting to do this challenge made me look for the times in my day when I could type. Even 15 minutes was enough to write a few words. I didn't have to sit there for hours each day (although the last few days did become a bit frantic).

3.  I can be disciplined.
Again, this was a realisation that I can plan things into my day, if I really want to do it.

4.  It feels good to write.
I did not find the experience tiring, but incredibly enjoyable. The sheer effort of putting pen to paper allowed me to focus and to concentrate for however long I had and to just write.

5.  You can only learn about what you need to concentrate on like descriptions of characters and places, by having something written to look over in the first place.
What I am trying to say is you can't edit anything unless you have written something first. Additionally, you can only appreciate what you need to do to your characters and the various description only if there is something on paper or screen for you to peruse first. Before this I had spent a long time about thinking what I would like to write, but not putting fingers to the keyboard. It is quite a good feeling to find you now have something to work on.

6.  It is possible to get yourself inch by inch to a goal.
This was mentioned a little in point 2, but really you can only appreciate what writing 50,000 words feels like, when you actually do it. 50,000 words amounts to 1,667 words approximately every day. So every day you needed to pace yourself to ensure you were on track. As you get closer to your goal, you begin to realise that this can be done in any avenue of your life and is very thought provoking.

7.  Preparation is so important.
This is where I came unstuck in the two past years. This year I had some idea as to what I wanted to write about. As a new writer of fiction, I didn't completely appreciate what kind of planning I needed to do. I soon realised as the days went on where my planning had been faulty. But I had planned something, even if it was a bit loose. And it did keep me going and next time, I will be better prepared.

8.  You need your buddies.
What I also hadn't had before was support, mainly because I had thought that telling people would make them think I was totally mad. This year, I had the support of my husband and the creative writing support group on Facebook, who also have a special month long NaNoWriMo group. It was brilliant to have that much support. My husband was fantastic, making sure I didn't overdo things, but also being very encouraging. I think he could see it was important for me to do this.
The support group were amazing. I did have one occasion where I deleted a whole chapter and a bit from my work and people were very sympathetic. But they kept you going and were supportive every step of the way. They also rejoiced with you when you completed the task. As I have said, amazing.

What next? The recommendation is that you leave it for a month and then start the editing process. That is what I intend to do. What I also want to do is to look at the other projects that I have started over the past year or so and see if I can bring those to fruition. Ultimately, what this challenge has done is made me keen to write more and better. You can't have a better outcome than that.