NaNoWriMo impressions
I’m feeling a bit underwhelmed after finishing NaNoWriMo last night. I’m still extremely happy that I did it and gladly gave them a modest donation. I hope the number of people doing it increases every year and they also get out of it as much as I did. But I guess it finally dawned on me that my story isn’t going to suddenly come together into what I had originally envisioned. My characters are two dimensional and the deep insights I wanted to convey about technology and the thought processes of geeks didn’t appear.
Of course, that is one of the numerous reasons for doing NaNoWriMo. It is easy to sit back and think that we can write a great novel and communicate our thoughts to people, but it is actually very difficult.
Another thing I didn’t realize before doing NaNoWriMo is that the first draft is the half way point. It is disappointing to find out I’m only half way after a month of work, but it is better sitting at the starting line. Even if it is easier to stand at the starting line and think about how much fun the race will be and how a 9 minute mile pace should be easy…
OK, enough with that metaphor.
The plan is to put the draft away for 6 weeks, as Stephen King recommends in On Writing,
Leaving and coming back to a piece can be valuable — and humbling. A while ago I wrote and submitted a script for Bravo network’s “Situation: Comedy” reality show. I never heard back, didn’t get on the show, and of course thought “it must have been lost in the mail, because that’s the funniest thing ever written.”
Well, I just found the script while cleaning up and it was the most contrived, artificial, just-plain-bad thing I’ve read in a long time. It couldn’t have been what I submitted! But it was. What happened?
Anyway… I look forward to reading about your experience revisiting your NaNoWriMo work in a few months. I hope it’s not too cringe-inducing for you.
I’m sure my novel will be at least a little cringe-inducing. I’ll definitely be writing about what I think of my novel when I pick it up in January.
I’d be interesting in hearing about your script writing experiences. Are you going to try again?