NaNoWriMo 2006: A Retrospective
Nov. 30th, 2006 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
barbarafettThis was my third year participating in National Novel Writing Month. My novel this year, Vescaris, is a science-fiction novel involving space exploration and space battles. I wrote 25,325 words in November, but I had a lot of fun doing it.
After how much I enjoyed my first two years of NaNo (I won for the first time last year!), there was no way I was going to miss out on this year's event. I signed up in spite of how busy I knew I was going to be in November. In October, I made an announcement on one of my favorite podcasts, Jack Mangan's Deadpan Podcast. I said that I was doing NaNo, writing a sci-fi novel, and that my novel's theme song was "Asteroid Speed Highway" by Matt Mango. I really love that song, and it made a great theme song for the spaceflight sequences in my novel.
Here's what made the difference between last year and this year. Last year, I was a student with two positions of responsibility in clubs. This year, I'm a student with four positions of responsibility in clubs, and a part-time job. Most of my time and energy were going to all of those things, and not to my novel.
Nonetheless, I'm happy with what I accomplished this year. Parts of my novel are actually kind of good, and I had a lot of fun using dares. The excerpt that's up in my NaNoWriMo user profile demonstrates the things I like best about my novel this year. It incorporates one dare (the whole "bothering" thing is from Potter Puppet Pals,) and it gives a general sense of who some of my characters are and what their situation is.
I had a really great time going to write-ins this year, too. I attended write-ins in my area two days in a row, November 18 and 19, and wrote a combined total of 5,384 words over those two days. The Friday night NaNoJams were a lot of fun, too.
Congratulations to all my fellow NaNoers! Whether you were victorious or not, you've made a serious effort to write a lengthy work of fiction, and that's wonderful.
After how much I enjoyed my first two years of NaNo (I won for the first time last year!), there was no way I was going to miss out on this year's event. I signed up in spite of how busy I knew I was going to be in November. In October, I made an announcement on one of my favorite podcasts, Jack Mangan's Deadpan Podcast. I said that I was doing NaNo, writing a sci-fi novel, and that my novel's theme song was "Asteroid Speed Highway" by Matt Mango. I really love that song, and it made a great theme song for the spaceflight sequences in my novel.
Here's what made the difference between last year and this year. Last year, I was a student with two positions of responsibility in clubs. This year, I'm a student with four positions of responsibility in clubs, and a part-time job. Most of my time and energy were going to all of those things, and not to my novel.
Nonetheless, I'm happy with what I accomplished this year. Parts of my novel are actually kind of good, and I had a lot of fun using dares. The excerpt that's up in my NaNoWriMo user profile demonstrates the things I like best about my novel this year. It incorporates one dare (the whole "bothering" thing is from Potter Puppet Pals,) and it gives a general sense of who some of my characters are and what their situation is.
I had a really great time going to write-ins this year, too. I attended write-ins in my area two days in a row, November 18 and 19, and wrote a combined total of 5,384 words over those two days. The Friday night NaNoJams were a lot of fun, too.
Congratulations to all my fellow NaNoers! Whether you were victorious or not, you've made a serious effort to write a lengthy work of fiction, and that's wonderful.
