NaNo Insights: Last Day

First of all…

33,880 words. That’s a lot of words. It’s not 50,000 but at this point I’m just like whatever. I wrote a decent word count with words I’m very proud of and even though I technically lost, I achieved a lot.

Quantity Vs Quality

If you follow me on social media, or perhaps read my previous blog post, you would have noticed my articles on this very topic. I was finding writing quality words more beneficial than a large quantity of them. You may be thinking, “But NaNo is all about word count. Get to 50K.” and you would be absolutely right. That is exactly what the replies I received on Twitter said.

My friends at@Inklings Press  said:

@Nthito Sometimes, perhaps, but second guessing too much can mean the first draft never gets done. In short, it’s a tool for getting it done

Fellow writer Antonio Lopez A‏  @Abel_SD said:

@Nthito for one month yes. It’s material that will be filtered. Edited and maybe deleted. But they are 50k words out of my head and flowing.

And these were all valid points. Getting to 50K, regardless of quality, gives you both content and something to work with afterwards. I can always focus on quality during the editing process. Nonetheless, I’m still very happy with my 33,880 words and I know I will continue to work on this novel and turn it into something I’m proud of.

What Now?

November has been a busy month. Looking ahead, I think the rest of life is going to be busy. I won’t be using that as an excuse as December rolls into play and 2017 looms ahead looking as shiny and promising as 2016 did all those years ago in the past 11 months. (yes it feels that long).

There’s a accomplished and a lot to accomplish.

To those who won NaNo, well done! I am extremely proud and happy for all of you. My Jozi-Wrimos and my international friends. May your novels be published and your names celebrated in the halls of literature!

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NaNo Insights: Week 4

I stretched over the 30K line. Barely. Statistically I should be at 35K words by now but 72% of all statistics are made up anyway so whatever right? You may be asking the same question I ask myself every time I fall another 1666 words behind with each missed day; will I make it to 50,000 words.

The answer is as mysterious as the novel I’m writing. Would you believe me if I told you that at 30K, I finished the first of three arcs in the story? Yep, that was just the introductory section and if I wrote it right, when you get to the end of it you should be like:

Now the hard work begins.

I have to tie them all in during the middle ground, building the tension and drama and action that led to that (hopefully) shocking first arc. Answering all the major questions that would be running through the readers’ minds. The only problem is… I know what has to happen, I have no idea how. Most authors will know, sometimes your characters just jump into their roles and lead the story along a different path to what was initially planned. A lot of times I had to rope them in and at least let them run parallel to the plan which rounded up perfectly after all. The story is on track.

What’s really satisfying is the fact that I’m happy with my story so far regardless of word count. That quality vs quantity idea, of building a more a solid work to edit later, turning out better than just a rambling of words that I know I’ll probably delete later anyway. While others may be happy to say,

“It doesn’t matter, they added to the word count and that’s awesome!”

I’d rather say, at least in this point in time,

“They were worth adding to the word count and that’s great!”

I may be behind on but guess what: