“Beginning is hard, but continuing is harder. The most important thing creators do is work. The most important thing they don’t do is quit.” - Kevin Ashton
I participated in November’s National Novel Writing Month for the fifth time this year. I haven't finished a novel yet but then again, I’ve never gone in thinking I was going to actually write a novel in thirty days. Instead, I’ve used the month to try and finish some of my short story ideas.
I had the following goals for NaNoWriMo this year:
Complete four of my short story drafts by working on one a week.
Write 500 to 1000 words a day.
Beat last year’s word count.
Write every day.
Three of the drafts are incomplete stories from previous NaNoWriMo’s. The fourth is actually a completed story, the first story that I ever submitted for publication. It’s also my first rejection. I decided to apply some of the feedback that I received and expand upon it. My plan was to work on that one and then finish the other three.
Beyond that, I hadn’t really done any planning or preparation. But as I began writing I realized that I was still trying to figure out my characters and their motivations. I started asking myself a lot of “how” and “why” questions. This led to asking and answering questions about my character's backstories and their world. I wrote these questions down and started writing out possible answers. This helped a lot, kept me writing, and led to ideas that I was able to put into the story. As helpful as it was, it wasn’t enough.
When I got to the middle of the month it was clear I was running behind. I was writing every day, but only 200 to 600 words a day. And I was still working on the first story.
I decided to rethink my goals and review what worked for me last year. In 2021 I read a book on writing for motivation, Creating Short Fiction by Damon Knight. It helped a lot. But this year I wasn’t reading anything like that. So, with all that in mind I came up with new goals:
Finish the story I was expanding.
Try and get to a second story.
Increase my word count so I can beat last year’s word count.
Read a book on writing. I pulled Steering the Craft by Ursula Le Guin off my shelf.
Write every day.
I rethought my goals again within a few days. I just wasn’t increasing my word count and I was really wrapped up in the story I was trying to expand. So, I dropped two of the new goals. I decided to not worry about getting to a second story, not worry about beating last year's word count, and just focus on completing the one story. My stress level went down immediately. For the rest of the month, more often than not, I found myself getting into a writing groove when I sat down to write.
Reading Le Guin’s Steering the Craft was a big help. I had started it before, but I don’t think that I was ready for it. Between the feedback I got from all the people who read my story before I submitted it, and the feedback I got from the rejection, I had a better understanding of what kind of things I needed to improve. I didn’t finish the book but the advice and the exercises from the first few chapters were enough to motivate me to try and apply the lessons to my writing.
One of the things I learned from NaNoWriMo this year is to adapt as you go. I felt good about my original goals but then reality set in. It helped to review and replan throughout the month. I think it also helped that I had more than one goal. I always had one particular goal to fall back on: Write every day, and update my word count, even if it was only one sentence. It kept me going.
So, this is where I wound up at the end of the month:
I met one of my original goals, to write something every day.
I met one of my updated goals, to complete the draft of one story.
NaNoWriMo is over and now I have some new goals: finish more stories.
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