The End of NaNoWriMo

I had grand plans to update daily about the NaNoWriMo process. But after the first couple days, I was  pretty overwhelmed. It was a long process. I stayed mostly on track for the first two weeks. I lost a bit the first weekend, but managed to catch up. The second weekend, things took a turn for the worse. I was out of town and didn't get to write the whole weekend. Once I got back, I was overwhelmed by how far I had to go to catch up. I wrote a little over the subsequent week, but had a really hard time keeping motivated. I got week two'ed in week three. Go figure.

That weekend however, I mostly managed to turn things around. By the start of Thanksgiving week, I was mostly caught up. Unfortunately, it was thanksgiving and I got behind again. Due to my new netbook (see http://magiuspendragon.tumblr.com for details about what I intend to do with it), I didn't get any writing done the following weekend. By the time Monday came around, I was almost 8000 words behind, and had only 2 days left. Due to the generous motivation provided by one Arumi, I managed to plow through the last two days. I achieved a win at 6:30pm on Tuesday, Nov. 30th, with what is easily my best piece of writing to date.

So the big question is what now? Truth is, the story isn't done. It needs at least 10000 more words. I promised said Arumi that I would finish before the new years, so that's the first goal. After that, I've joined up with some women in a critique group, so I'll be diong writing for that. Mostly, I plan on revisiting / rewriting my first novel, Dragonmage. There's plenty wrong with it, and I've learned a lot since then. If the process of writing my NaNo novel has taught me anything, it's that I still have some things to learn, but I am learning. I'm improving. It's making a difference.

The next project is one I've been keeping kinda under wraps. But looks like I accidentally committed to it at the TGIO party last night. A friend of mine has inspired a story. But rather than tell it in the written form, I'm going to write, direct, produce, and compose for a short animation. I'm aiming for less than half an hour, though how close to that will depend on how big the story is. I don't have much other than it's titled The Kat Files (okay, maybe too similar to the Dresden Files, or the X Files, or any of the otehrs :p), and is about a detective (PI or Cop, up for grabs) who's also a fallen angel.

The last thing I'll be working on is the tablet project alluded to above. Read the other link for more information.

The last thing I'd like to do before wrapping up this post, is to discuss something about how this years process for NaNo was different than my last two years. Anyone who's known for my NaNo past, knows that I have been rather unlucky. My original goal for the month was 25000 words, rather than 50. This year, I plotted more than I ever had before. It helped a lot. I was us8ing my combined system, between the 7-point plot, and the 8-act structure, with Jim Butcher's Scenes and Sequels. As I progressed through the story, the 7-point plot became the most helpful, with Scenes (but not sequels) second. Sequels are where I have a lot of work to improve. I still like the idea, but as I was writing, I realized that these were more cues than plans. It was still much better than anything else I've done.