On Wednesday afternoon, after 18 days of frenetic writing, I finished my Nanowrimo novel! I typed my 50,000th word, completed the sentence, wrote THE END and exhaled deeply. Woohoo. I hit the word count button, and it said my novel was 50,023 words long.
I don’t know what I expected…some sort of hoopla, I guess. Fireworks. Marching bands. Jack-in-the-boxes. Dancing squirrels. Special effects. Something more than a profound sense of relief that I don’t have to keep writing this godforsaken book.
I flipped over to the Nanowrimo site and pasted my entire novel into its word count box, for word-count verification. Not only was there no hoopla, but it said my novel was only 49,821 words long. What?? I wasn’t finished?? How could that be??
So I flipped back to my novel, picked a paragraph at random, and padded it. By the time I was done, Nanowrimo said my novel was 50,025 words long. Still no hoopla, but at least it’s over.
I was planning to embark upon a second, better novel as soon as this one was done, but I can’t bring myself to start it just yet, not while the stench of the last one is still in my nostrils.
I honestly didn’t think myself capable of writing such a stinker of a book. But I did it, and I’m proud of it. I blasted right through my writer’s block, and I learned a lot from the process, including:
- There’s a big difference between wanting to write and actually writing.
- A good novel needs good bones.
- In order to develop interesting, fleshed-out characters, you can’t invest too much of yourself in caring whether they’re ‘good’ or ‘bad’ people.
- In order to make progress while writing a book, you can’t perfect each sentence as you go, even if the thing you love most about writing is a well-crafted sentence. Save that for the second draft.
- When you feel your book is irredeemably bad, it’s hard to keep investing the time and energy to make it longer.
- You still get a good buzz and a sense of accomplishment from reaching your goal, even if your book stinks.
- There’s a first-draft sweet point where you strike the right balance between quality and quantity. I’m going to find it in my next book.
What next? I’m going to wait a couple of weeks and then I’ll read my first draft to see if there’s anything I want to salvage from it. I’m not going to do a second draft; this book has already served its purpose and there’s nothing more to be wrung out of it. I will take advantage of the free offer for the publishing of a single copy of the book, but I will hide that copy well and destroy it before I die.
Congratulations on finishing your book!
Have you read Richard Brautigan’s novel The Abortion: A Historical Romance? In that book there is a library where anyone is allowed to bring in one copy of their book, be it handwritten, mimeographed, blank, whatever, and place it lovingly on the shelf.
I thought of that when you said you get one printed copy. We need a library like that.
Congratulations, ma’am – for finishing, and for daring in the first place to plunge your arms straight into that slightly dangerous-looking and very smelly vat, to embrace the glorious horrible messiness of the creative process…
But the cool thing is, even with a stinker of a book, is that from now on you get to say, “Oh ya, I’m working on my SECOND book”.
Hey I’m game to read it!
My nanowrimo got totally sidetracked by getting set up to buy a tiny farm…and a ewe named Zoom…and a business plan…which will eventually include the book, but I can’t write a stinker – Slow Food Nova Scotia ppl have expressed interest in my project! So now I need to slow down and write a good cookbook, not a rant about the agrifood industry with recipes in between screeds.
Wow. Congratulations!
I’d never heard of Nanowrimo until I read this post. Maybe I’ll try my hand at it next year. I actually have about 10 chapters of an old novel already written. Is that cheating? 😉
BTW, here you go.
Hooray! Your first book!
I’m up to 19,000 words, about. We’ll see how it goes. I’m pretty tired.
Wooo! Congrats on finishing your book! I’m very impressed and inspired by your Nanowrimo accomplishments. Excellent writing tips too. Can’t wait to read about what comes next!
What Xup said.
Congratulations!
I sent you a NanoMessage when I saw that you had reached your goal. That is so cool! You are so cool.
I am way, way behind you and still vaccillating between despair and triumph. Today was a good day, though. What an amazing thing to experience. This tortoise will see you at the finish line.
Congrats, Zoom! This is excellent news! I’m at 32,000+ words…Not sure I’ll get to 50,000 but my goal for the month was actually 20,000 so I’m pretty stoked!
Well done!!!
Robin, it’s been many many years since I read it. I love Brautigan, and I love that concept of a library. (It’s the Internet!!)
Thank you Coyote, for the kind words and also for such compelling imagery!
XUP, I’m not sure I want to encourage people to ask about my first book by referring to my second.
Mudmama, have I told you how excited I am that you’re getting a ewe named Zoom?
Catnip, bringing a pre-existing work-in-progress to Nanowrimo is explicitly against the rules. However, there is a sizable and respectable group of Nanowrimo Rebels who thrive on rule-breaking.
Megan, 19,000 is exactly where GC was when I finished. He’s had a burst of energy since then, and insomnia, and has surged ahead to 27,000. Good luck to you, I’m rooting for you.
Thank you Roro!
And thank you too Pamela.
Laurie, I know you can do it. As a matter of fact, you’ve already written – and published – a book! I bought myself a skein of Misty Alpaca as a reward, by the way. And a lace shawl pattern. For when I need something hard to do.
WC, you’ve way surpassed your goal – congratulations!
Oma, thank you.
Congratulations! What an huge accomplishment!
Congratulations zoom!