In case you’re wondering, I accomplished my NaNo goal. 50k words in 30 days. Yippee!!! I was so excited I couldn’t blog about it. :-O
I think the biggest thing that came out of the challenge for me was I now understand what people mean when they say, “I wrote ten thousand words today.” I never paid attention to word count before – I just wrote until I couldn’t sit at the computer anymore (about five minutes) and then jump up, grab a bag of chips, sit down, write for maybe ten minutes, back up to do something else, back down…
How did I do that for two years?
To give myself credit though, I had started to actually sit and write for longer periods of time. Focusing and going “into the zone” has become easier and easier. Maybe I could have done NaNo before, but I don’t think I really had the writing stamina for it. I’m glad to know I’ve got what it takes now. I can look in the mirror and say, “NaNo? I can do that thing.” That’s a big deal.
I also realized that sometimes the story we set out to tell isn’t the one that gets told. I mean, I KNEW that because The Son of Asgard has changed a ton since I started, but that was because I hadn’t written an outline or fleshed anything out. This time around I outlined, I knew where I was going, I knew the plot points and stuck to them… and then I was about 2500 words out from 50k when I wrote a scene that changed the whole dynamic of the story. I finished the scene and sat back stunned. Really? A fantasy that’s about empowering women in their relationships? Is something like that even publishable? Isn’t that a way over played theme in other genres? How’d it even go there?
It was a bizarre twist I wasn’t expecting, and yet it flowed. That one little scene changed the meaning of the ending that I had already written, and yet I only had to change two words out of the entire ending to make it fit. Blows my mind.
In the end I called it Darkness Blooms, indicating the twisty end. Here’s the synopsis I finally gave it just before submitting the word count – I was so tired I spent all of one minute working on it, so even that’s pretty rough:
In a world where the elements are sentient, Arwyn flees the genocide of her people to her betrothed, Aden, Crown Prince of Eterne. Together they must battle their way to the Garden of Darkness where The White Ladies are rich with magic. Only after being bound and learning to work together can they drive back The Sea from her terrible revenge.
Yeah… first drafts are great huh?
NaNo rocked for me!!! 🙂
Woman With a Glass Pen 