Find Your Voice

I’ve truly procrastinated about putting the final results of for my NaNoWriMo efforts because, frankly, it didn’t end well. This was my first effort, and as I mention in my first and second posts on the subject, my goal was to write every day. I really did pretty well…until Thanksgiving. Things just went down hill after that.

My final total was far from NaNoWriMo’s goal of 50,000 words. I ended up with 11,621. That’s kind of sad. But, on the bright side, I learned a lot.

First I picked an idea that i had never really flushed out, and it showed. I had no real out line (except for one I hurriedly put together one night when I didn’t have much time to write and wanted to feel like I made some sort of attempt) so the story was loose and unfocused. I had no clear character definition or characteristics so what was supposed to be a strong female character comes across as fragile and whiny. Not at all what I was going for, and is probably part of the reason I had so much trouble finishing the month.

I did prove to myself that I could do it. I’ve also learned from my mistakes, which I’ll use to help me with other project this year. I’ll also be better prepared when I try again next year.

Related articles

• #NaNoWriMo – It’s not over till it’s over (the-unmutual.blogspot.com)
• NaNoWriMo Wrap-up (writeontheworld.wordpress.com)
• NaNoWriMo (jdhhomeschool.wordpress.com)
• NaNoWriMo, Stroganov & Dojo (tyhutchinson.wordpress.com)