NANOWRIMO 2021 is now in the history books, and as promised, I’m back on the blog. In this post I’ll tell you a bit about how it went and what’s yet to come.

I won

I did. I finished a nearly 60,000-word manuscript in less than a month. A story that’s been on my mind for a few years is now recorded in print!

I “lost”

Honestly, as I said here (link), I’d intended to get TWO manuscripts for a total of 85,000 words finished. So as Cuddy said on House, “I passed by their meager standards and failed by my own.”

But, there’s the question… Did I really fail? To be honest, I don’t think so!

I learned

One of my goals this year was to apply skills I learned at a writers’ conference. My outline was better this year and exposed changes I needed to make in my planned stories and some things I needed to learn. I actually applied skills I’d listened to and thought about. I discovered some flaws in my work and started addressing them much earlier, saving myself a lot of re-working.

I’m coming out of this year’s project with a better plan for what to do in the future. I also discovered the seeds of a third (3^rd!) book hiding in the mix. It comes from needing to know what a pair of secondary characters in the finished first draft are doing. Their story touches on the one told there, but isn’t really that story. It’s a separate story that’s happening right beside the one I was writing. I’m going to have to apply all the planning tools I’ve learned to that story to finish the one I’ve written, so why not write the newly discovered one too?

I know what I need to do to finish the manuscript I’ve created, what I need to learn to finish the second, and I have a plan for the third. I’ve even got research materials ordered (some have arrived already) to help me do that. I also learned that NANO can, does, and did help me in other (even non writing) ways.

So, NANO’s over. I won. I lost. And I won in an even bigger sense…

So? What happens now?

Now? First I recover. Second, I assess what happened and mark the lessons learned (like the stuff I just wrote about…). Third, coming up quickly, I survive Christmas. Then the big stuff really starts rolling.

In January I start my first really big 1 ½ pass on the new novel. I create a new outline, including the stuff for those secondary characters (which will become a new first draft…) and make notes on what’s needed to fix the story. Then I do more research and work on stuff a piece at a time.

As I’m doing all that for the book, I’m also making changes here at the website/blog as I’ve discussed previously. I will also be working on a writing conference I’m taking part in and hopefully helping some people make their lives better.

There’s lots that needs doing, dear reader. And if we really commit ourselves, there’s a lot of good we can do. I wish you both luck and blessings in your good doing, dear reader. And, I’ll see you next post.