NaNoWriMo Update #5

I’m finally done – and this is the final update (I swear)!

You can check out my other updates #1, #2, #3 & #4 here, but the short story is that I planned to write a novella, and I did, finishing at around 44k words, yesterday.

But man – this didn’t go as I wanted it to at all.

Everything up until the end of November did – I was at around 38k words when December hit (and maybe I can blame it on the fact that I released my second book – A State Of Despair – then and things got a bit hectic), but suddenly everything just went downhill with this NaNoWriMo Project.

I wasn’t feeling motivated, I didn’t get enough writing done every day, and for some reasons I just couldn’t pull the ending together.

And that’s kind of why I wanted to do this last update – because it’s done (at least for now) – and it’s important to acknowledge that it’s been difficult. There is an ending there, and it’s gone mostly where I wanted it to (I think), but it just doesn’t feel right. Still, I’m putting the whole thing away.

Because it’s important to take a step away, when you finish a draft. That how I work – how I’ve always worked – and I’ll always recommend it if people ask. Put the thing away. Be proud of your writing and of the fact that you’ve finished, but put it away. Don’t read it again. Not yet, not for another few months at least. It needs to simmer.

That’s what I’m going to do with this project. I’m not going to look at it for a while, maybe not for half a year or more. God knows I have many other projects I need to be working on, and I have two deadlines to meet in January. But when I do finally get back to it, when I read through it and get to that ending – maybe it’s not as bad as I think. Maybe, just maaaybe, it might be alright.

Or it’s utter horseshit, who the hell knows. That’s what editing is for anyway.

How did your NaNoWriMo go? Did you finish? Pat yourself on the back either way – you’re awesome!