What I Learned from my Sixth NaNoWriMo

Right now, somewhere in the depths of my laptop, is a document I haven't opened it since sometime last month. I'm dying to open it and play with it, even though I've made myself not touch it since early December. But I know exactly what's in it - 55,484 words of a story that I wrote in November. Waiting for the dust to settle on it, and then for me to come and clean it up.

I am so eager to sweep in and save my little gem from the depths of my file system. But even though I'm chomping on the bit to get my hands on it again, I'm forcing myself to wait until at least six weeks have passed before opening it up again. And that deadline is drawing closer! I am so excited to get to work with my characters and make my plot, story world, and writing better.

I've done Nano for six years now - and this Nano was different from the rest in a few ways. I learned things from this crazy month of writing. Some of these were things that I "relearned, and some were more serious and some were flippant. And I think I'll remember them for a while.

1. Typing a novel is amazing. 

This was my first year to actually type a novel. I know, I know - a bit late to the party. But before this, all of my Nano were handwritten in notebooks. And hand-counted.

But when I woke up on November 1, I wanted to try typing it. It was a split second decision, but within a few minutes, I had pulled up a Google Docs file and was agonizing over what the first line should be.

And it was glorious. I could delete sentences! I could skip ahead and work backwards! I could get a word count in a few seconds! I could even remove a piece of dialogue from the last page and base my entire next scene on it! 

To many of you, this may be something simple - but I hadn't had this freedom of typing a novel before. And there were times that I remembered my reasons for sticking to notebooks and pens. I was on the computer for a lot longer,  and couldn't write on the go as easily. My eyes and wrists got sore. My laptop was out of commission over Thanksgiving break and I got distracted . . . way too easily.

But despite those minor difficulties, typing gave me so much more freedom. I definitely am glad I decided to type my novel this year, and I know that my story was able to grow because of this.

2. Breaks are good thing

I've always seen Nano as the ultimate writing season. Even if it was only the one thing that I wrote in the entire year (and for some years, I'm ashamed to say, it was), it was time to push everything not important out of the way and get some writing done. 

I felt like I had to devote every spare minute to writing. And when I did take a break from writing to read a book or watch that movie, I would feel guilty. 

Spending time with family on Thanksgiving? Maybe - I have words to write. Decorate the Christmas tree? But I have only four more days and I'm a thousand words behind! 

This Nano, I made a point to put away the novel and spend time with family. And you know what? My wordcount didn't slip. I felt more refreshed and energized when I came back. And I had a great time with my family during Nano. 

I may be able to write when I'm twenty or thirty. I may even be able to write some version of this story then. But I would have lost the chance to make meaningful relationships with my family - and to me, that's more important than anything I could ever write.

3. It's alright to be clueless about what should happen next. 

Normally, I am not a pantser. I need to know what the next scene is, what the characters' motivations are, what kind of climax I'm building up to, etc. 

But . . . October of last year was crazy - and I didn't have time to seriously think about Nano. So I took one of the louder ideas in my head, and ran with it. And on November 1, I started with a vague idea about the setting and one character and no idea about how the story would end.

I added a few characters on the second day, because I could. I fell in love with my characters. I created conflict. But I still didn't know how I was going to wrap that conflict up.

And you know what? That was okay. This was a first draft - I was still getting to know these barely-one-month-old characters. And if it took me a while to find out where the story was going, it's fine. I could spend the time understanding what was going on in my characters' minds, and why they're driven towards this finish line. I didn't know what I was doing at times, but I was writing. And that's what matters.

My novel has holes. It has plotlines that look like a bunch of scrap yarn- tangled and knotted and messy. But that's what editing is for. Just so long as you keep writing, and you keep creating, you can make something from it.

4. First draft are made to be messy

Right now, my novel is a fragile, small origami piece. The paper is folded here and there, but it's wrinkled and bent in the wrong places. There are extra wings or horns growing on it. Its words are tangled together in little shreds - and some of those are barely hanging on to each other.  A puff of wind a poof! it could be gone.

This book will have to go over a lot of editing. My plotlines need to be strengthened. I need to decide what are subplots and what are abandoned rabbit trails. My characters could use some more fleshing out, and some could use some trimming. 

A lot of this is because I didn't now about my plotline while I was writing. I was experimenting, really. But what does matter is that I wrote it down, and that I want to keep on going. My story may need a lot of editing and revising, but it's 55,484 words more than I had originally. I have something can work with now - and it's something that I want to work with, too. 

Even when your first draft feels like a waste of time because it's not "perfect," remember - it's not supposed to be perfect. What matters in the first draft is that you write and keep writing. 

And that - in my humble opinion - is what Nano is all about. 

Some other things I learned and relearned this Nano: 

• There is such a thing as an ankle holster for your gun. 
• Wrist sheaths for knives look cool, but they aren't practical. 
• There are different types of drunk people. Writing them is hard. 
• A hickory tree grows about 80 feet tall, on average. 
• The Internet is a demon. Especially when you absolutely need to focus at all costs. 

and, most importantly, I relearned that writing is amazing and I love it.

What about you - did you do Nano last year? What kind of things have you learned about writing recently?