It used to be that I would tell my kids about NaNoWriMo ahead of time so that no one would expect a whole lot of “extra” stuff from me during the month of November. Now, I still tell them but I think they’ve come to feel that Mom can do it regardless of what you throw at her. Not true.
This year, it was really tough to keep up with my daily word count to remain on par. In fact, I was not on/at par most of the time. It made me really scramble and worry and stress about whether I would make it or not. At times I really felt like I should just chuck the whole thing and and say that NaNoWriMo is for the young kids who have all the energy to do it, even if they don’t have the time. But I didn’t.
I’m glad I stuck it out. I made it. And it made me feel like I am more in control of things than I actually am. I needed that. Of course, the novel is crap. I actually like the idea, the plot, and the characters but it is a far way from being a complete novel. I like it though, and it is different from the other things I’ve written so I will tackle it after January first and see what I can do with it. Right now, I consider it an outline for the novel I want to write. Although it is 50 thousand words long, about half of it will be chucked and I’ll bring in a lot more in the way of character development and setting.
This year, I wrote a multi-generational novel and I had not taken into account before starting what the timeline for each character was/is. So I need to do that before I begin the rewrite. I need to make a “family timeline” for the characters in the novel and a “world timeline” so that I can fit in events that might have been taking place at certain times. Also, this one is set in San Francisco so I need to construct a “city timeline” that includes events important to the city so that the characters will respond and interact with the city timeline.
So life after NaNoWriMo? Well, I think, at least this year, there is no life after NaNoWriMo because I’m still thinking about the project I started and figuring out a way to make it more “finished” before NaNoWriMo 2013 comes along!
Good for you!