It’s been about a month since I’ve posted anything here, and a lot has happened in that time. Holiday stuff, family stuff, personal stuff, all kinds of stuff that has–of course–affected my ability to keep my nose to the proverbial grindstone where writing has been concerned. With that said, I’m hopefully back to blogging regularly, and writing more consistently even when I’m not blogging.
As I mentioned in previous posts, I participated in NaNoWriMo this year, and managed to get a large chunk written of a novel that I’ve been spinning around in my head for years. In terms of the stated victory conditions for NaNoWriMo–50,000 words of a novel written during the month of November–I technically did not win; my novel has come in at just under 40,000 words, and it’s not complete. However, I’m not sure my failure this year is as complete as one might initially believe, even when one factors in the excellent pace I was maintaining at the beginning of the month, and the sudden drop-off at the end.
A number of factors have led me to consider that this failure might be one of the better things to happen to me, from the standpoint of one who aspires to write for a living. Consider the following:
- The story that I’ve told this year is far more complete–or, at least closer to being completed–than the partial novel I wrote 3 years ago, when I “won” NaNoWriMo by getting 50,000 words pounded out. That story, which still remains badly unfinished, was only to about the halfway point of the plot before I hit the word count minimum, and I haven’t had the gumption to go back and finish it. This story, I’ve basically finished: there’s a beginning, middle, and clear end, and could probably work as it stands with a little bit of editing, polish, and a little more content. I feel much better about this unfinished novel than the technical winner I wrote in 2013.
- I tried a new approach to this story that I hadn’t with the others–I wrote it in first person. Typically, I’ve gone for the third person omniscient point of view, and even though I’ve gotten used to writing that way, I’m not sure it’s helped me over the years. First person has allowed me to get into the head of my protagonist–no, it’s allowed me to express things through my protagonist’s viewpoint in a way that has just come off as more natural and relevant to the story I’m trying to tell. It probably means I’ll be rewriting a lot of previously written stories, but I simply can’t get over how right it feels.
- My characters were talking to me. This had previously only happened once previously, in a scene that still strikes me as one of the best character moments I’ve ever written. It came about in that feeling of not actually having written it, but merely serving as the mouthpiece, or recorder, of your character’s words and actions. That happened again during this story, and it resulted in some long-standing questions finally getting answered about several characters and their motivations. It enabled me to get my characters to the final conflict, and has had significant bearing on the aftermath. As I work to finish out the piece entirely, I look forward to hearing more from them.
I think the most significant indicator of this failure being in name only is that I’m still working to flesh this story out and finish it. Consider it one of my New Year’s resolutions, but if I can get this story finished by the end of the month, I’ll think of this year’s NaNoWriMo as one of my most successful ever, regardless of whether or not I actually “won” or not.
One of the longer-term issues I’ve had with this particular story centers around one of my main characters. She’s the main antagonist for this story, a former ally of my protagonist who has betrayed him and his group. I’ve also decided that she’s irredeemable at this point, someone who has crossed a moral threshold from which she can’t return, necessitating the conflict between herself and the main character.
Spidey Librarian 