Losing NaNoWriMo - not the end of the world for me!

It is the end of November and I did not win NaNoWriMo this year. People are still saying not to give up. Apparently it can still be done. But I lost, I lost faith and I lost hope. I feel almost bad about it. Yet, I think that I can achieve in my own time.

I have a YA novel on the back burner, simmering away and popping parts out here and there. It is strange because I never saw YA as a possibility for me. Since I read Twilight in my early teens that it all YA has been to me. Stupid teenage romance about stalky guys and the supernatural. I never really realised what it could be, not until now.

Now I am so far passed YA that I think I can better understand it. I can look back and see passed all the creepy brooding vampires. I mean, that part was a nightmare. But, then there is Northern Lights and more recently A Fault in Our Stars. YA can carry important messages about life and friendship, about acceptance and diversity and it is that part of it that I want to write about.

I have always felt like I had something important to say. I think most writers will tell you that, especially the unpublished ones. They will say that they have something important inside of them and they just haven't found the right way to say it yet. And, I believe them. Once they find the right way, the perfect way, to say that one important thing, they usually become something. They might not get published but they become something. At least, I hope so.

So here I go, putting NaNoWriMo behind me and writing something else instead. Something that I do not want to rush through! I am a huge believer in not editing until the first draft is done, but you cannot rush art! At least, I hope not. I do not need November to write, it is a bit of fun, a challenge. Really though, I write all year round and after the year I have had I know that things really cannot get worse. So with nothing in the way, here I go!

I must be mental.

Today I resign myself to the loss of NaNoWriMo. I have written 23000 words of one novel and it just is not working. I know the idea is to push ahead and get to the parts that work, and I have done that in the past when I thought that it could work, but I have to face up to the fact that I can no longer sit day after day and stare at that particular scrivener project. It is a sad day for me, I do not like to give up, I do not like to lose. Although, whilst I have given up on one novel half way a more confident side of me is whispering, we can still do this.

I had a very strong novel idea for the start of November, which I kicked in for something that I thought would be easier, now 23000 words into that one I am beginning to look back to that first novel and think, that is the one. That is me. I have been lying to myself over 23000 words and that is not okay. Sometimes the words did flow but they never had a sense of rightness to them.

I am a lost writer. I grew up believing that high fantasy would always be my passion but over the last few years I have changed. Those 23000 words were my last chance at reeling back in the spirit of high fantasy, but I pulled out an old boot instead. A worn, shredded old boot that has lost its charm. I am not saying that I dislike high fantasy, I am just saying that I as a writer have evolved from it. It was my springboard into writing, and I do not believe that many writers in this world have stuck with their springboards. The very nature of a springboard is to launch you to another place, the very nature of a writer is to evolve.

I have said before that I am always learning and want to continue to learn. It is why I am pursuing a MA and want to teach. I have never been disillusioned, I have always written because I could not exist any other way, I have never expected anyone else to understand that, to read my work and see it. I have my hopes set on a teaching job that will allow me to exist and to pay the bills.

And so, I have to be true to myself. This year NaNoWriMo has taught me that above all else. The first year I did it I learned that I could, the second year I learned that I could do it and go beyond it, and this year I have learned that it is okay to change what you write - that if you do not roll with the changes you are going to be on the floor days, months later wishing you had. This is not a sad moment for me, I am not giving up I am moving on and starting again, because believe me I am not done trying.

So, to sum up:

- Restarting NaNoWriMo

- Not afraid of change

- Writers are awesome

NaNoWriMo

I am taking part in National Novel Writing Month and I am over 5000 words behind. Yet, I am still feeling rather optimistic about winning. My plot is reasonably flawed, a few of my characters are already flattening out and there is this annoying little voice in my head that says university work is more important. Also, if I do not write anything today this will be my third day in a row without writing. 

I guess I should really go and bloody write something rather than waffling in a blog post. Surely a blog post is not superior to the march of adventure that is NaNoWriMo? Because, it is an adventure. Not only that but it is a challenge. One that I think every writer should attempt. I have spoken to people who do not think that just hammering out a first draft is the way forward. To them I say, at least I am moving forward. That is, after I have throttled the editor in my and shoved him in a box. 

I think learning to quiet the editor is a good skill. Perhaps even a very important one. Even if you take nothing other than that from NaNoWriMo I think it has been worth the time. Just do it for one year, do not bother with the rest. I promise you will learn something.

This is my third year taking part. I am of the opinion that a writer can have never learned enough. And so year after year I put myself through the ordeal that NaNoWriMo becomes. I will probably just scrape by like I have the previous two years. I will probably finish the novel over the months after NaNo, just like the last two years, and then I will print out a triumphant first draft, put it on my side and never visit it again. 

Because editing is the bloody hard part.

In a way I suppose the march stops there for me. I am probably doomed to fill drawer after drawer with horrendous first drafts. Even as I type this my mind is straying to the first draft I wrote last year and I'm thinking, perhaps I should do a rewrite for NaNo, perhaps I should scrap what I have written so far this year. Perhaps. Perhaps, I should write the second novel in the series I started last year.

Now I am feeling conflicted and will have to go away and think about this some more.