And So November Is Gone Again...

...And I can blog without feeling guilty that I'm not working on my novel instead.

It's December Second and along with thousands of others I'm writing up the annual 'Where did I go wrong with my NaNoWriMo attempt' post. I should have written it yesterday but it was 40 degrees (that's 100 for you American readers) and in between moaning to my cat about the heat and rebuilding my Facebook Sim house, I was soaking in a cool bath, eating a cheese sandwich, and preparing myself for a pool party (which was awesome, thanks for asking).

I guess this is why the creators of NaNo made it in November. It must be dreary and cold over there in Northern America, perfect 'stay inside and write' weather. You can have as many cups of tea as you like without overheating, you can stay inside of a weekend when it's rainy and awful instead of sunny and breezy and lovely. It's harder for us Southern Hemisphere types!

Anyway.

My final word count: 18,454 between three seperate stories. (Yup, three.)

That's not 50,000. It's not even close. I didn't sit down every day to try and write my allotted words because goddamnit, it was November and it was gorgeous outside. I didn't stick with one story and plod along filling it with shitty unplanned dialogue just to get to the 50k word limit. At the end of Week 1, I quit my planned story and picked up an old one. In Week 2, I took stock of what I had and I acted. I let my inner editor out of her flimsy NaNo cage and shamelessly deleted all the lines that didn't work. I also started a new story and wrote out a big, completed outline so I know where it's going. And I even broke my own rule and wrote a 'main character describes herself in the mirror' paragraph. Yeah. So there.

I read a lot of great books, too. I really should update my GoodReads. Maybe that's a task for this afternoon.

So where am I going from here?

I'm sticking with Story Number Three. It's got more words already than the other two stuck together and whenever I do sit down to write (on my shiny new laptop), it flows quickly. It's sort of autobiographical (but of course, with much more drama and better-looking characters) so I guess that helps. First novels always are a bit like that anyway, right?

Wish me luck.