That’s it, NaNoWriMo is over. My wordcount on the 30th of November was 71,434 words (I estimate that the completed first draft will be around 85,000 words) and I only have three chapters left to write.
I am both elated and exhausted and eager to write the final words of The Orchid Collector. NaNoWriMo has allowed me to do in one month what took me YEARS for my debut novel.
When I was writing the first draft of As Winter Came and Went, I only picked up my pen when inspiration struck. I could go for weeks, months even without writing a single word. I didn’t even know if I would actually finish it one day or just give up, like I gave up on so many projects. Well, I didn’t give up but there were about five years between writing the first words and publishing the book.
And now, after thirty days, I am 15,000 words away from the end of my manuscript. And this is so exciting! Of course, this first draft is awful. Parts are incoherent. It will need months of editing. It may need a total rewrite. The style is sloppy in part. Most of the secondary characters are just cardboard. And to be honest, I am a bit fed up with it. But you know what? Once it is finished, making this first draft into a proper novel will be the fun part: I like editing, refining, working with words, trying to create the perfect sentence.
And even if this manuscript isn’t very good, by taking part in NaNoWriMo, I have proved to myself that I could write every day. That I could take this writing thing seriously. That I could churn out chapter after chapter. And more importantly, I have learnt to not wait for inspiration: I produced about 2,000 words a day, even if I did not feel like it. Because that is what this challenge is about: pushing your limits, and getting the writing done.
Could I do it the whole year round? No. But I will try to use the momentum this challenge gave me to finish The Orchid Collector and maybe another project. I will try to write the last chapters in the next couple of weeks, and then I will let the manuscript rest for a while. I have already made a list of details, scenes and characters I want to change, but I will wait, to look at it all from a distance. I also have more research to do, historical and otherwise, in order to flesh out the manuscript and make the story more realistic. So yes, lots of work ahead.
But now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got three more chapters to write!
