National Novel Writing Month 2015

[Chozon1]

Sooo...I totally finished. O_o Which boggles my mind. I'm thrilled, excited, and a bit gassy overall. On the one hand, I can't believe I put 50K words to paper.

On the other, I'm still not quite finished with my story. Which I find funny, since at the beginning of the month I wasn't sure I was going to be able to stretch it out to 50,000 words.

Before I'm done: I just lead Hero into meeting his best friend, whom he doesn't remember. I've got to lead the two, and the rest of the characters, into a high speed pirate chase over a large desert; the capturing and relocation of a very grumpy dinosaur; a confrontation with an ancient evil, whom one of the characters has a history with (honestly, I didn't see that coming when I started).

I want to thank you guys both for being very encouraging, and inspiring me to try this. ^_^

[JOJ650s]

Wow, started late, and finished early.
Congratulations Chozon!

[ccgr]

congrats!

[Sstavix]

Congratulations! And double congratulations for hitting 50,000 words... and you're still not finished! That's a fantastic position to be in, since most publishers won't even look at your work until it's 60,000 words or longer.

And personally, it's always a blast when your characters suddenly derail your carefully thought-out plots. When it gets to the point where your characters start thinking and acting on their own, you've really developed them to the point where you feel like you're simply reporting to your reader what's going on. The writing feels much more natural at that point, and you're simply along for the ride.

When you've reached the end of the book, sit back, pat yourself on the back, and let it sit for a few weeks. Think about what you've written, and then go back over it. Fix your typos and grammatical errors, edit down scenes that don't work for you, and expand on others. And, when you feel like you can share it with others, see if some people - preferably fellow writers - will be willing to take a look at it and give you detailed feedback about what works and what doesn't. Then you can use that material to create another draft! I find that, after three or four drafts - sometimes more - it starts getting into a shape where you can try to shop it around and see if anyone wants to publish it for you.

Great job, and keep it up!

[Chozon1]

congrats!

Wow, started late, and finished early.
Congratulations Chozon!

Thanks you guys. ^_^

Congratulations! And double congratulations for hitting 50,000 words... and you're still not finished! That's a fantastic position to be in, since most publishers won't even look at your work until it's 60,000 words or longer.

And personally, it's always a blast when your characters suddenly derail your carefully thought-out plots. When it gets to the point where your characters start thinking and acting on their own, you've really developed them to the point where you feel like you're simply reporting to your reader what's going on. The writing feels much more natural at that point, and you're simply along for the ride.

When you've reached the end of the book, sit back, pat yourself on the back, and let it sit for a few weeks. Think about what you've written, and then go back over it. Fix your typos and grammatical errors, edit down scenes that don't work for you, and expand on others. And, when you feel like you can share it with others, see if some people - preferably fellow writers - will be willing to take a look at it and give you detailed feedback about what works and what doesn't. Then you can use that material to create another draft! I find that, after three or four drafts - sometimes more - it starts getting into a shape where you can try to shop it around and see if anyone wants to publish it for you.

Great job, and keep it up!

I think it's actually going to be very hard for me to not immediately turn around and start editing...but I'ma give your wisdoms my best effort.

There's actually been several points in the story where I knew where I wanted it to end up, but had no idea how I was going to get there. I'm both thrilled and amazed at how it has turned out so far. In fact, even now, I know where I want it to end. But I don't have a very clear idea of how its' going to get there, or who's going to be there when it does.

It's kind of crazy. O_o

[Sstavix]

Ding! Hit 50,000 words!

Now to finish the dumb thing.

[Chozon1]

Awesome! Congratulations! ^_^

[JOJ650s]

Very nice, Congratulations!

[ccgr]

Congrats!

[Deepfreeze32]

Hey! I did it too!

Now I need to add a bunch more stuff to the beginning before I can even properly call this a first draft.


I think a round of congratulations for all three of us are involved. Any objections?

[Chozon1]

Win, sir. Win! Congratulations. ^_^

[Sstavix]

Sounds good to me.

And I'm in the same boat. I hit mid-scene when I got to 50,000, and haven't gotten back to it yet. I'm hoping I'll have my first draft done before Christmas, though.

I'll have to take a look at the winner goodies, too.

[JOJ650s]

Awesome! Congratulations Deep!

[Sstavix]

I was starting to fear that the ending of my book was going to feel a bit rushed. Well, I just had a fantastic idea that will make it feel less rushed... but will end up taking more time before I finish it. Sigh....

I really need to buckle down and get this done! I'm hoping I can get 1,000 words written per day, at least. If I do that, I might be finished before Christmas.

Wish me luck!

[Chozon1]

Good lucks. ^_^

I'm aiming to finish before Christmas as well. At the moment, I'm just trying to push it out and get it completed. It's becoming...not quite a chore, but more something I've got to force myself to do, so I'm just trying to finish before it becomes a burden and I want to quit. XD