NaNoWriMo No Mo

I failed.

Big time.

Ultimately, I couldn't even hit 10,000 words.

I thought I would have more time in November.  I thought I had a real shot.

NaNoWriMo is an international writing contest challenging you to write 50,000 words on a novel in one month, the month of November.

I had a great idea, The Extra Credit Club, that had been burning in me for many years.  On paper, I had more time available to do it.

First, however, I had to finish up The Model Apartment, a play I was in.  That took the first few days of the month.

Second, I wanted to front-load my work time, so I could have more time in the back of the month.

Third, with my family home with their Thanksgiving break, I found myself choosing between time with family and time to churn out another 41,000 words.  I chose family.

I know about the theory that you can write whatever and then go back to fix it.  I write relatively fast, but I don't quite write that way, either.  Sure, I often have to go back and edit, tighten and make it more consistent, but I'm not a big wholesale editor.  I usually have a strong idea of my characters and plot, and like to make the first draft pretty close to the final draft.  Everybody writes differently.  That's just the way I do it. 

I probably could have gotten to 20,000 words if I kept doing it a little each day, but once I realized I couldn't make it, and that very few people would see the finished work, I found it harder to motivate myself.

I do want to get back to The Extra Credit Club.  But I  owe it to my readers to return to The History of the Trap series first.  I also have a completed book I'm just sitting on - Crowley Stories: Swamp's Edge.  I'm Hamletting that, as I can't decide whether to find a real publisher or agent, or just publish it myself. 

Semi-retirement has not brought the extra writing time I had hoped for.  Much of it is my fault.  I have let other projects and concerns get in the way. I have not had the consistency of schedule yet that makes me know - this, this is my writing time each day.  I vary what times I go to work at accounting each day, and for the longest time, I had a script I had to learn for a play I was in.

I have to do what I can to restore a consistent AND longer writing time.  Fiction takes more time and effort than blog entries and non-fiction writing.  And fiction is my first love, and what I want to return to.

Thanks for all who support my writing efforts, be they blog, or newspaper column, or my self-published efforts.  You help inspire me, and help keep me going.

Back to the writing board!

T. M. Strait