Post-NaNoWriMo, Day 2: More than a Manuscript

Just a note: I’d hoped to blog frequently during my NaNoWriMo experience, but, as anyone who’s done it successfully will tell you (wish I’d have known!), your brain sorta turns to mush as you write and logical thought processes often take a back seat to the actual creative writing. Over the next few days, I’ll be organizing and posting my thoughts & experiences with NaNoWriMo–a process I firmly believe has made me a much better writer.
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I know myself–and my writing process–well enough to know that when I undertake something new and something as massive as 50K words in 30 days or less, I’d better have a backup plan. I start new creative projects with a crazy, intense energy, and while it takes something big to get me off-track, once I’m off-track, I’m hopelessly lost.

For example, if I’d have picked up the cold my students were passing around or had some kind of disaster where I’d been away from my laptop for two or three days (I know that I’m a very disciplined writer who must meet or come close to daily word quotas on any project, so I work my writing schedule accordingly) and been several thousand words down, I’d pretty much give up.

So, in the planning stages, I decided that words were not my only goal. I’d already logically foregone the whole worrysome issue of publication (see yesterday’s post) and was OK with that, but I still needed alternative goals to meet along the line to feel my NaNoWriMo experience was a successful one.

My goals, in order of importance to me, were:
1. Write twice daily, once before school (4:30-6:15) and once in the evening (7:30-9:00)
2. Produce a minimum 1,000 words for each session
3. Reread NOTHING except the last paragraph written for each new session to get a grip on where my previous essay had been headed
4. COMPLETELY finish every 3 of 5 essays.
5. Mentally censor/pre-edit nothing.

Five small goals but they all added up to getting me to the finish line. One and two are self-evident. 1K words is at times a challenge, other times a breeze. I didn’t always get to write in the evening but, with the exception of weekends, I was typing at 4:30 each morning. My intention was to create a habit there–and since I’m typing this before anyone in their right mind is out of bed, I’d say it succeeded.

Number 3 was to keep my focus on the creative forward nature of NaNoWriMo. It’s not national write and edit month, write and sell or write and question. It’s writing. As a person who loves editing (I know, I’m weird. I don’t care!) I had to resist the urge to go back and fix. It’s not a source of procrastination for me but a fun activity I needed to put off til the writing was done.

Number 4–well, let’s just say that if you’re a writer, I know you’ve got far more novel beginnings than endings in your notebooks and Word files. I instated this rule within the first few days as I discovered I’d write to the climax or message of my essays but leave them dangling “for the editing process”. I forced myself to finish some and leave others. My reluctance to finish pieces is grounded in the fact that my endings suck. They’ve always been the worst part of my writing, even in academic writing. I have a hard time following through if the words aren’t perfect, and I used NaNo as the excuse to force the crappy words out.

Number 5 piggybacks on number 4, only in a broader sense. When you sign up to write fifty thou words, you soon realize that even with massive post-it chart papers full of ideas, a stack of index cards and a notebook of thoughts, it’s not enough. Eventually you have to write, write and keep writing, trusting in the process that writing forward will dredge up something from the sludge in your soul worth pursuing. In NaNo, there wasn’t time to get an idea, debate, outline, debate, toy, play…there was time to write and nothing else. Some of the tangents I went off on in the course of writing were sheer garbage. Others were entertaining but only for me, and others surprised me with the latent potential once fully drafted and edited. I liked this goal a lot because it let my muse have a say, and she’s only happy when she’s listened to.

At the end of NaNoWriMo, I did end up with a manuscript. A hefty, chunky one I’ve already printed off and hole-punched into a binder. I haven’t read it yet, haven’t pulled out the wheat from the chaff or sifted the dirt from the gold. It needs to simmer first. But more importantly than the winner’s certificate, I won by adding new, positive habits to my writing repertoire that will serve me well with any writing I do in the future.