On the subject of NaNoWriMo, allow me to say this...
I finished my 50,000 word manuscript on the 30th of November, which just so happened to be deadline day. It was a close thing, and all I remember of that previous Saturday was frenzied writing and drinking copious amounts of coffee in an effort to catch up.
But it all worked out in the end. I submitted my manuscript on time. I did it. I was victorious. To paraphrase Caesar: "I Came, I Wrote, I Conquered"...
... And it was glorious.
Let me tell you all a secret. Aside from one short story that I never finished and one novella back in March that, surprise surprise, I also abandoned, it has not been the best year for writing. Probably the worst in a long time, actually. Ideas for stories have always been floating around my mind, random scenes or characters or abstract images that hold no context, but whenever I attempt to put them down on paper my enthusiasm drains away. A couple of days of stopping and starting is usually all it takes for one of my projects to enter the "Beware: Shit Story Ahead. Avoid At All Costs!" phase.
Most of the time I would press on anyway. Not with that particular story, of course, but I usually start working on some other project even though it never amounts to much. I don't know if it's a lack of discipline or laziness or that my writing skills just haven't had enough practice to fully capture what it is I visualise in my mind. Either way, around September of this year I seriously considered dropping the whole writing malarky and taking the time to have a good long think about what I would do instead. Writing has always been very intrinsic to my life, ever since I was about 12 years old, so the fact that it came to this was rather scary.
One evening I found myself reading the blogs of some writers whose works I enjoy. It was midweek and work beckoned the next day; I wasn't tired enough to get some shut-eye, but I lacked the energy to do anything more productive than read random stuff. One writer in particular mentioned on her blog that she used to take part in the National Novel Writing Month, and that's how she started writing her debut novel (a novel that found publication five or so years later). Reading about her experiences was what made me consider taking part in the competition this year. Considering I'd thought about abandoning writing altogether, I still wasn't too certain about it all - second thoughts, and all that - so maybe NaNoWriMo would be a good excuse to see if I still had enough interest in it to write 50,000 words in a month. That's quite a daunting word count for someone that can hardly churn out a couple of pages without giving up and binging on chocolate instead. Maybe all I needed was to approach the craft from a different perspective. Hell, it's not like I've never done this before, either. 2009 proved that I could, indeed, achieve that goal, but that was five long years ago. Things are different now.
So, that was that. November was going to be the final straw, the deciding factor on whether writing is something that I want to take seriously, or whether I would hang up the pen and pad and go down a different road altogether. What that road would be is anyone's guess.
But I gave it a go, nonetheless.
And I finished it in good time. Look! I even got a certificate, akin to a metaphorical pat on the back. Isn't that nice?
Here's a picture from my NaNoWriMo account, with a dinky little chart showing my progress.
Pretty neat, eh?
And yes, I have Dream as my profile picture.
And yes, again, my username is Vespasian. I wonder if anyone remembers that?
And for the last time: yes, that big gap where I didn't write much at all? I can explain the reason for that in three words:
Dragon. Age. Inquisition.
I must admit, it still is a source of pride that I managed to succeed a second time, but now the question that needs answering is whether writing is something that I want to pursue further? I've already proven that, under the right circumstances and when I stop procrastinating long enough to actually sit down and work on it, I can reach a reasonable word count each day. Not only that, but, unlike last time, I now have a full-time job, so most of my creative endeavours are limited to late at night or extremely early in the morning.
The answer is simple: yes, I want to continue writing. As Christmas looms on the horizon, I plan on making the most of December to work out where my novel will be going next, and to think about what writing means to me. If I had more details about all this I would share it, but everything's a bit up in the air at the moment.
Now that the competition has come to an end, it still begs the question of what I plan to do with this journal blog thing. One of the main reasons I decided to pick it up again after all those months of inactivity was to talk about my experiences taking part in NaNoWriMo. Now that it's over with, I'm a little stumped at what to use it for. I don't want to descend into the realm of writing reviews that no one reads, as that's no fun. Hmm...
The journal blog thing needs a new purpose...
It also needs a better name than journal blog thing...
