This is not the end

A few days ago NaNoWriMo ended and lots of people won by managing to write 50,000 words of a novel. I was not one of those people, however I am determined not to see it as a failure.

I’m not entirely sure how many words I’ve managed, I have made it over the 5,000 mark but I have a lot of it written down on scraps of paper and in notebooks, so that number is only what I’ve managed to type out.

I also have a bit of an issue in that I started writing the story in third person and at some point this switched to first person, without really noticing that I’d done it. So now I have to decide which I would prefer to continue writing in, I think I’m swaying towards first person but I’m asking advice on that before I commit. I’m tearing my hair out with anxiety totally fine with someone reading two unedited paragraphs of my first attempt at writing on such a large scale…promise.

So even though I haven’t won my first year of NaNoWriMo, I have gained a lot from taking part…

• I discovered that I am a plantser (both planner and pantser), I have a basic outline of my novel and my character backgrounds, but actually quite liked being able to change it up when a situation ended up differently to what I’d originally planned.
• I realized that I can write anywhere if I set my mind to it, on the train, sneakily in work, in waiting rooms for appointments, lying in bed…hence why a lot of my story is on paper and not on a laptop.
• I have managed to connect with other writers through Twitter and will shortly connect with more through this blog hop organised by Raimey.
• I have the drive to actually sit down and write the story instead of having the ideas floating about in my brain doing nothing but distracting me.
• The most important by far is… I have over 5,000 words of a novel written. That might not seem a lot to some but considering this particular idea has been floating around for probably over five years that is a big achievement to me.

So I think it’s fair to say a big congratulations to everyone that won and everyone like me that took part and are still going!

Even though I didnt make it in the month, I will continue, even if it does take me to August 2017.

∞