Another November Come and Gone

I have been writing since July of 2016, and this past November was my first foray into the maddened jungles of NaNoWriMo.

My first fan, great friend, and heckin good editor Karyn Stecyk (@karynlstecyk) finally convinced me that now was my time.  This was her third attempt at getting me involved, and bless her heart if she wasn’t right to do it.

I found out more of who I am as an author and also gained rather stark insight into just how much room there is for improvement.

Overall, of the 30 days in November, I wrote in precisely 11 of them.  Barely above a third.

However, my daily goal was 500 words, and my ending total of words was 8,743 of 15,000.

So, what this tells me is two things:

1) I am really bad at daily consistency with writing smaller amounts.

2) I completely crush larger writing sessions.

As the month progressed, the longer writing sessions became far easier.  I’d hit the daily word goal, and I’d barely even be halfway through my normal rhythm.  I’d extend the session, writing whatever I could stomach, and more often than not be staring down the barrel of 1200+ words.

I like the longer sessions too.  I’ll spend the day planning and thinking about my WIP, then when the writing session came, I’d jam out to music and simply crush the keys until I reached my end for that night’s labor.

It’s a good system, and honestly I believe this is the system I will be using for my writing sessions moving forward.

While I will still try to get smaller writing sessions when the larger sessions aren’t an option, I honestly believe that knowing what my strengths are as a writer will allow me to better play towards them.

I’ve got a lot of writing ahead of me, and more than anything else I want to make sure that I achieve my goal.  It would be a shame to waste all the time and effort that I’ve spent so far to get where I am.

Nanofully,

Justin