Thursday, December 18, 2014

NaNoWriMo - After Thoughts

So I completed a second year of NaNoWriMo.  Woot!

It's interesting comparing this year to last. 
For instance, last year I was rather hard-pressed to reach the full 50k words.  I did everything in my power to be extra wordy.  I avoided using hyphenated words and I elaborated on some points a little more thoroughly than I would have on my own.
This year I didn't have that problem at all - the book is only half-done actually. 

Because I had far more story than what was necessary to cross that 50k finish line, I had the luxury of bouncing around a little.  Don't feel like writing that particular scene?  No worries, move on to the next!
In that sense it was quite liberating taking on a project bigger than NaNo's puny 50k word-count goal.  But in the grand scheme of things I've found it to be a hindrance as well.  This month it's been very difficult to find the motivation to sit down and hammer out the rest of the book (and fill in those pesky little scenes that I skipped over in November).

I'm hoping it's just the frenzied schedule set by the holidays and that after the New Year I'll be interested in writing again because frankly I've had little to interest to sit and write of late.

It is nice to have "The Kai'us Planet" up and breathing again.  I've been just tickled pink with the reworked scenes.  They flow so nicely; they grab you and carry you along for the ride (or at least I think so!).  Plot points that were clumsily introduced far too late in the story before are put right out there in the open in this version.  The characters act and react in more plausible ways now.

I also really like that fact that the Kai'us' now really don't care much about the Humans' "advanced technology".  In earlier versions the main characters did everything they could to hide their tech from the "primitive natives" lest they contaminate their culture with ideas centuries beyond their natural development.  Instead the Kai'us' look on the Humans' scanners, clothing and weapons with pity as inferior substitutions for things that come natural to them.  It takes the "Dance's with Wolves" element out of the story, which makes me happy.

Fortunately even the folks over at NaNoWriMo's site know that December is a crappy month for writing.  They talk about January and February being the editing months.  I'm excited for those resources to fire up so I can finish "The Kai'us Planet" and get those galley prints made!

Just like last year though, I'm not sure if I'll tackle NaNo again.
Of course - like last year - things can change!