Monday, November 23, 2009

My Nanowrimo 2009 Experience

On How to write a Novel in 30 days?

How did I get Myself into National Novel Writing Month? I still wonder...I already had an ongoing writing project,I have been writing on for the last 5 months, doing it for my pleasure & at my pace. Then reading & googling through the internet, i accidentally found http://nanowrimo.org & I registered. I had no idea on what I was going to write at first but as I registered on Oct 8th , I still had " weeks to think about a theme, a plot , characters & all those things that make a novel. I reduced drastically my facebook procarstination & gathered vague ideas on what could be my novel outline. I found a title, which was good enough for me to start from & then I couldn't way for nov 1st to come. I joined the Africa , Elsewhere group & the France Group, as I didn't feel ready to take the risk of writing a full novel in English. I felt a bit lonely with the 2/3 Kinshasa wrimos lost on the site & hopefully made one or two very nice writing buddies. For once, i didn't procrastinate, as i hate being in the loosers' camps & I managed to write up to date 43009 words. But I must confess the following:
  1. I am a word perfectionnist & i feel like correcting all the time
  2. My Facebook wrimos & writing buddies have been helpful in encouraging me , so dont do it alone, it's depressing
  3. I go back & forth in the story, changing who my MC is (main character) but i have a story
  4. Quoting Hemingway "the first draft of anything is crap" I feel relieved coz my novel is crap at that stage,
  5. I have no clue on the end of my story so i will just let it flow until i reach 50K & hopefully will get back to it in 2010 when I finish my current story
  6. I am proud of myself...
  7. I hope i can post again next week & tell you I won , I won.

So folks I hope next yea i will drag more African wrimos in with me in the challenge, I never though i would have made it , given my multiple activities & my kids . But yes You can was saying to me that little voice.

I must thank Steve Jobs as my Iphone has been a valuable partner, as i could write bits & pieces on it until i passed 43K , and know i have to go writing, twittering, then facebooking. So see you at 50K. It feels good to write write write even with rthe frustration of my inner editor.

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