I finished my novel last night.
I wrote the ending two scenes and the epilogue about 4 days ago, and then went back to fill in the 10k that was missing. Not the best way of writing, but it did have some positives.
Yesterday I finished the final scene (one about 5 scenes before the end) and though “I barely described anything. And I’ve killed off a villain who I only introduced two scenes ago. Really, he’s not much of a villain.”
So I wrote more – I added background and some actual details about the key places like rooms visited a lot and after finally reaching 79k – matching the 79,200 of the first book in the series, I found the 800 words weren’t too much of a stretch.
I still don’t really have a villain. But I’ve been writing these characters since January. I have written or planned the storyline in this world EVERY DAY since the beginning of September.
I love it, and I’m sick of it.
National Novel Writing Month
This is my forth year of “winning”, but it’s the first year I feel I’ve won fair and square. I didn’t plaugerise another storyline, didn’t have a character sing a song all the way through, including the chorus every time… and I didn’t panic on the final day and paste Finnish poems and their english translations into the “epilogue” (See last year for details).
I finished a storyline, with a few days to go, and on average that meant writing 2,900 a day. True, I’m living at home with no job, but this year I tracked my rough hours, and worked out that I only spent 65 hours writing. That’s an average of 2.4 hours per day, which could be fit into an evening after work, if necessary.
NaNoWriMo, for me, was the first step into realising I could create my future. It was my step in to Redefinition Alchemy and the first thing that made me go “if I want to be an author, why don’t I write a book?”
In hindsight, it sounds like a ridiculous comment; but thinking about the labels of “an avid reader” or ” a lover of artwork” – are you actually doing the things you want to be in your future?
I wasn’t.
Where To Go From Here
I’m not sure. I have a lot of ideas for the third book – possibly the last in the series; though to be honest, I’ve built up a world that I’d love to explore for many more hundreds of words. But the main characters from book 1 will end at book 3.
And the only way to improve my world-building skills is to practise.
Currently, I’m taking at LEAST four days off and then I’ll have a look at Resilience again – probably my favourite idea for a book ever; though I’ve tried to re-write the 20k I have about 15 times. I can’t find the right place to begin the story; so I’m going to try and plot it as if it’s a new book.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
In light,
Rose
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