Last night, I reached my word goal for this year. Anything I write further on this novel will be gravy.
I've discovered that many people write a lot more than 15,000 words a year, but I really didn't know what to set the goalpost for when I started this year. Before that, I broke my years down into how many stories or articles I wrote, not the actual length of the pieces.
It also takes time to start a novel. Research, developing the cast characters, and at least some plotting has to take place before the writing begins. Then, there's the actual breaking-in process of sustained creation. It takes some getting used to, and requires patience.
I hope to write more in the coming year, but let's see how far I get by the end of this one.
Sarah
2 comments:
Congratulations on reaching your goal. I agree that a novel is a major undertaking.
For NaNoWriMo, the whole idea is about quantity, of course, and the idea of quality is chucked out the window until December at the earliest. I think this is a good approach for those would-be writers who hesitate to put words down in the fear that they may not be perfect. I know I was this way, and this month has (so far) been a revelation to me. I had some time ago overcome my fear of failure in general, but in writing I had not. I am thankful now just to put words down.
I'm grateful for my time as a journalism major. Many of the classes began with "Here are the facts, write an article a page long during the next 15 minutes." It was years before I realized that the point was not to grade our writing, but to get us over our fear of messing up. I still write expository material fairly easily. Creating a whole cloth from the fibers of my imagination... takes more effort.
Sarah G
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