{"id":904,"date":"2019-11-04T20:55:16","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T01:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/?p=904"},"modified":"2019-11-24T12:05:09","modified_gmt":"2019-11-24T17:05:09","slug":"nanowrimo-2019-a-bolt-from-the-blue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/nanowrimo-2019-a-bolt-from-the-blue\/","title":{"rendered":"NaNoWriMo 2019: A Bolt From the Blue"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The NaNoWriMo Wristband of Power is Officially On<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So this is my ninth year entering NaNoWriMo. In every year but one, I\u2019ve wound up with a novel draft at the end of the month. I only failed to win in\u00a02017 because I came down with the worst flu I’ve ever had, bad enough that I’ve been sure to get a flu shot every year since.<\/p>\n

Now, these novel drafts certainly aren\u2019t good<\/em> novel drafts, but the more recent\u00a0ones could be made good with lots of revising and editing. Tidepool<\/a>, <\/i>the sixth novel I’ve written and the first one that’s going to be published,\u00a0started life as a NaNoWriMo novel, as did the novel\u00a0I\u2019m querying now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I know some writers claim NaNoWriMo is a waste of time. Maybe it is for them, but I\u2019ve always found it to be amazing discipline. And, y\u2019know, I\u2019m going to be a published author because of one of my NaNo novels. I\u2019d say it\u2019s worked out pretty well for me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Someday I might really cut loose and rant\u00a0about the people who keep\u00a0trashing NaNoWriMo. For now, that’s a waste of valuable writing time. I’ll just say this: If you don’t like the idea of it or it doesn’t fit your style, then don’t do it; it’s certainly not the only way to get a novel draft done and you\u00a0aren’t a bad writer if you don’t work that way. But don’t try to make other writers\u00a0feel like they’re wasting their time if they try it, ‘K?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I was oddly unprepared for NaNo this year; I had a concept for what I wanted to write but knew very little about what was going to happen. In writer parlance, writing a novel without planning it out first is called \u201cpantsing\u201d (as in \u201cwriting by the seat of one\u2019s pants\u201d) as opposed to \u201cplanning.\u201d The “planner vs. pantser” debates can turn pleasant writing forums into smoking rage craters, but like most people, I’ve tried both approaches\u00a0depending on the circumstances. I pantsed my first NaNo novel, but since then have tried to do at least a little bit of planning before November rolls around.\u00a0Having some kind of roadmap and an idea of who I’m writing about just makes things a little easier for me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But on Halloween night, I was a bit nervous; I knew Day One was right around the corner and I wasn\u2019t even sure how to start the novel. Oh well. I figured I\u2019d have a glass of wine on Friday night and just start writing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On Friday afternoon, November 1, I read a Washington Post article about the McKamey Manor<\/a>.\u00a0This article might be behind a paywall, but if you google \u201cMcKamey Manor,\u201d trust me that you\u2019ll find plenty of stuff to read. Fair warning, though: The stories you find\u00a0might be horribly triggering for abuse of the mental and physical kind.<\/p>\n

By the time I finished the article, I felt like I\u2019d been hit by a thunderbolt: THAT was what I wanted to be writing about. A story started forming in my head with a place like the Manor (run by a guy somewhat like\u00a0McKamey) at its center.\u00a0And I had all the “Who, what, where” questions in my head: Who<\/strong> would run something like this? Why<\/strong>\u00a0would anyone voluntarily let people do that to them? Where<\/strong> would they be doing this, and when<\/strong>? Like, what<\/strong> the hell<\/em>, man? I was itching to work all that into a novel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that\u2019s good,\u201d I told myself. \u201cOpen up a Scrivener file and jot down some notes, and that can be your project next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nah. I wanted to write it now. Within a few hours, I had a main character, an antagonist, and a plot taking shape in my head, which was way more than I had for my previous idea.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2011 I committed to doing\u00a0NaNoWriMo two days before it began, having never written a novel before. I’d had a novel idea kicking around in my head for years but had only jotted down a few fragments up until November 2011. And I won. I figured I\u2019d never top that feat for sheer impulsiveness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Writing a novel whose idea, characters, and plot I came up with on November 1st? Yeah, I\u2019d say I topped it. I’ve hit over 10K words four\u00a0days in, so I think I made the correct choice. And I’ve got a really good feeling about this one.<\/p>\n

P.S. I didn\u2019t get into Pitch Wars again. Meh. This time I wasn\u2019t as crushed as I was last year. In\u00a0addition to NaNoWriMo I\u2019ve got Borderlands Boot Camp stuff to work on and will possibly have edit work to do for Tidepool, <\/i>so I\u2019m going to be pretty busy already. That being said, while I might apply to be a PW mentor next year, I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019m done entering contests as a mentee.\u00a0I’ll continue to attend workshops where and when I can and hunt for an agent\u00a0the old-fashioned way: by querying.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So this is my ninth year entering NaNoWriMo. In every year but one, I\u2019ve wound up with a novel draft…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[42,43,37,5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":925,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions\/925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}