Well, I’ve successfully completed National Novel Writing Month for 2014! It was a close call, as I was about 8,000 words behind in the last two days of November. Luckily, I managed to pull through, mostly because I word-sprinted as if my life depended on it.
Of course, my novel will probably never see the light of day, as it’s a piece of trash for the most part. But I loved journeying with my three main characters, and I had the extraordinary opportunity to right everything that annoyed me about books I’ve read recently:
- Books with too much subplot? FIXED IT: only one main plot in my book.
- Books with obnoxious love triangles? FIXED IT: my plot, to my despair, was heading in that direction – so instead, I just made my three main characters a polyamorous threesome.
- Books with not enough queer characters? FIXED IT: my threesome is 2/3 queer, which pleased me greatly.
- Books with only white characters? FIXED IT: made sure to incorporate plenty of multicultural characters and POC, though it’s debatable how well I did with accurately portraying their cultures.
I had originally intended on editing my manuscript, but I think I’ll just let this one go. I came up with ten better ideas for stories before this one was even written. The experience was plenty of fun, though, and I learned quite a bit about myself as a person and as a writer. And the writing process was just as cathartic as ever!
I’m also happy to report that because I’m no longer slaving over my word count, my book reviews will soon continue as regularly scheduled.
I hope your November went swimmingly; I know mine did, and I have the finished novel to prove it. If you did NaNo, let me know in the comments how your writing went! And happy December.
Tara
"We know not what we may be." 