Well, if you haven't guessed, I didn't quite finish Nano this year. In fact, I threw in the towel about the fifteenth. There are a lot of reasons why, but the least was the busyness of school. While definitely a contributing factor, there were other, more serious problems with my story.
As evidenced in previous posts, I lost my sense of direction on The Imaginarium/Fair too Far/The Farthest Mile fairly early on, and it was only after fifteen days of wrestling with a story that was fighting tooth and nail to go a different direction that I realized my mistake.
See, the story I had set out to write was far different from the one I found myself writing, and while that can often be a good thing, in this case it left me hogtied, trying to finagle characters and settings into a plot that wasn't theirs.
In addition, by the fifteenth, even though I was a good deal behind on my word count, the story was gearing toward the final act. Which meant that the story would be a great deal shorter than 50,000. That was the final piece of a rather complex puzzle of problems that contributed to my decision to stop and try again later.
Because that's what I plan to do. And though planning and writing have not always seen eye to eye in my mind, there are two full-fledged stories floating around in my brain right, just waiting for me to sit down and write them. One of them is The Farthest Mile, the final iteration of the story I settled on.
Mashing together themes from the parable of the prodigal son and awesome setting of steampunk, coupled with some good old-fashioned story tropes turned on their head will make a wonderful story, once I can separate it from The Imaginarium in my head.
So we shall see. I've been writing a bit since, in tiny spurts and leaps, and plan to continue doing so for some time, perhaps even setting a much smaller goal for myself every other day or so. And since that is the case, the blog shall remain open for a bit longer, though I highly doubt regular posts will become... regular again.
All said and done, I had a blast Nanoing this year, and thoroughly enjoyed diving back into writing. I'm already looking forward to next year!
I am glad to hear your blog will be open for awhile longer. I really like reading your posts.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've seen, this NaNo was filled with stories that didn't work out. Mine included. But it is always nice to get something from a story, even if that story doesn't work out. And the one your working on now sounds exciting!
Thanks, Jack! Heh, kind of nice to hear I wasn't the only who flopped. :)
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