NaNoWriMo Good News and Bad News

First, the bad news. Another National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has come and gone, and I did not win. Again. I’ve participated almost every year since 2012, and have never completed the recommended goal of 50,000 words. This year I completed 15,000 words, which is on the high side of my usual results.

To make matters worse, that word count is an estimate. The proper approach to NaNoWriMo is to draft a novel. However, on several occasions, I’ve used it to rewrite or revise a novel. This time, I was revising Romance One, a novel I originally drafted for NaNoWriMo in 2012. Since this is not a competitive event, the rules are loose, and I’m a self-declared NaNo rebel (yes, they have a badge for that).

Word counts can be tricky when revising. One day I added a new section of 400 words – that’s easy enough to count. The next day I reviewed the manuscript of 48,000 words to make sure all references to a minor character reflected new information about them. That took 2 hours, and required changing 20 words, with a net word count of 0. Somehow it does not seem right to count 0 words, but 48,000 does not seem right either. I ended up figuring an hour of revising is like writing 1000 words.

Even by that fudging, I didn’t come close to winning. When I’m in my groove, I spend an hour of writing each weekday, but I didn’t manage it over November. I have any number of reasons / excuses, including volunteer commitments (largely related to writing) and freelance work (money is useful). The new NaNoWriMo web site lacks the ability to specify the date when you update your word count, which I found discouraging. If you don’t log in every day, you can’t properly track progress.

I’m not worried about lacking the discipline to finish a book. I’ll get there. I know things can take longer than expected. For example, in 1995, I applied to enter a two-year Master’s Degree program. It took thirteen years to get accepted, and seven years to complete the degree.

A reassurance that I will get it done, and the biggest reason for not spending much time on Romance One or other fiction writing this month, is my good news: Halfway through the month, I completed a set of major revisions to the third draft of Romance One. This is a significant milestone – the third draft addressed concerns that had been raised by a trusted editor, and the major revisions addressed issues raised by people who read small portions of the manuscript while the third draft was being prepared.

With the third draft in good shape, I needed a short break, from any writing, before returning to the manuscript for minor revisions. Then it goes out to beta readers. That won’t happen until the new year, as I have an academic article to revise this month, as well as a couple of editing projects to work on.

If all goes according to plan, by next year’s NaNoWriMo Romance One will be published (likely under a better title), and I’ll be working on another project. If things don’t go according to plan, I may be rewriting Romance One for NaNoWriMo, again. Either way, I probably won’t be meeting my word count goals. But I’ll be writing some words, and, regardless of the word count achieved, signing up for NaNoWriMo is a step in the write direction.