NaNoWriMo was tough. I tried this two time in past 4 years and both times i left it in middle or somewhere even before the mid point but this time, somehow, stumbling and mumbling and tripping and falling my way through I finished it. Phew. Clocked a total of 50021 words. Even if half of it, or even if all of it is crap, i don't really mind. The first draft is always shit. I know this much that I wanted to finish 50k words and with all the shit happening to me in November I still did it.
In the last hours till 0000 hrs when i was writing the last 3000 words, there was a very big temptation to cheat. I gave myself various reasons that I can stick parts of any previous work that I had written and inflate the word count and get the pretty lil pic that you see above. I mean, who'd be there to check me, right? I could have done that and gotten away with it too. But then, i thought, can i really not write 3000 more words? Will i have to wait another year for a November to see if i can finish the 50k. I didn't have the patience to wait till November 2011, so I wrote on. It is important to do what you are doing, with eyes on the goal and all distractions eliminated.
The writing has been tough for me in November because I went home for Diwali once and then for another occasion. That's two weekends wasted, and then I had to go for a dear friend's marriage on the third weekend. These six days I got NIL words done. Which is kinda scary because weekends are the time when any writer can pull up the word count to the max degree. I just got one weekend which was the second and which had a half working Saturday in my office. But at the end of the day, the important thing is that writing got done. How it got done, the circumstances it got done in, whether it was pen or paper or macbook or iphone or the skin of your enemies with their blood and bones for ink, it doesn't matter. What matters is that writing must happen.
And writing happened. This makes me happy.
Thanks to the twitter gang for being pillars of support and jabs in the ass when I was wasting time doing other things than tweeting.
Right, that done, now i want to ask you something.
Do you like horror short stories?
yes, short horror stories! brilliant! :)
ReplyDeleteam so glad you wrote this post coz i have always wanted to write thru NaNoWriMo. but i have exams till mid nov and it just makes it all even more worse. and i would rather start it and finish the damn thing than start it and abandon it. so i will do it when i graduate. lol. i wish they could conduct this thing in december but it's okay.
CONGRATS! on finally getting 50k done! there's a feeling of satisfaction, i am sure. but first step is a first step. :)
hope your diwali was rocking :)
Thanks Neo :)
ReplyDeleteYou can try your own novel writing month in any month you like. It's a very personal thing really.
Diwali was good, hope yours was awesome too!