Well I haven't been updating..mostly due to a combination of exams, inhuman amounts of homework and nanowrimo. I probably won't be bloggin like this often, unless I found the urge to write about something. Sometimes I still find joy in it; writing, that is. I'm thinking of making a completely new blog, but I'm way too lazy and am probably borderline busy...
Anyways, this was supposed to be some kind of post-nanowrimo reflection because I couldn't find anywhere else to rant, so here goes.
Week 1: I kicked off my novel with a running start, with more than 4k words on the first day. I was able to write continously, with each section I wanted to type appearing by itself. It was a fast week and I racked up a pretty high wordcount I guess... I had written out a 'first draft' before somewhere, though it contained nothing more than the introduction. I had the first few chapters planned out in my head, so it all came out quickly.
Week 2: Things started slowing down in week 2. At first I was still at that 'running pace', but I started losing steam when I realised something extremely important - I HAD NO PLOT. Oh no. It was the moment of panic, but I calmed myself down and finished writing that arc I was in. I also thought about more novel more and started losing all the 'it's awesomeeee~ :'D *tears of pride*' mood. I took a step back and saw that the story wasn't exactly going anywhere, so that made me panice for a while. Plus AFA 11 IN THE MIDDLE. I missed 2 days of writing..
Week 3: This was when I actually SAT DOWN, AND THOUGHT ABOUT IT. Coming up with a plot was probably the most important parts of writing a story, because no plot = no story, or even worse, BAD STORY. So I thought and actually started doing a vague outline to keep track of my story. Before, I had always been writing with this...passion that words and scenes just came to me. So I finally drafted out a decent plot, did some research on awkward topics and also drafted out a lot of characters I would use. I think there was a lot of work in this week itself. After the initial slowdown, I started to get on track with my lot and for the first time, saw the end of my novel. (No, not the world.)
Also, I went on a holiday to malaysia so I didn't write for 3 days. I think that helped me sort out the clutter in my head and made me write faster when I got back too. (After I got back on the 23rd, I wrote 5.6k, my highest record in a day.)
Week 4: My novel was ending. I began to think 'WHAT IF IT ENDS BEFORE I HIT 50K. OHNO.' Also, I was also feeling sad because it was THE END and I really liked some of my characters. I kind of wanted more time to explore them, but the story itself was REALLY fast-paced. I knew it was going to end soon. Also, in this week as I wrote I found myself losing sense. As in, some things I write just DON'T MAKE SENSE TO THE REGULAR HUMAN. But it's okay.
Then somehow, I did it and I finished up the story. My initial reaction was *blinkblink* "I did it?" but then as I VALIDATED my novel and saw the 'YOU WON!' on the nanowrimo page, I was just so happy :'D
Well overall, this was an amazing adventure. I didn't regret this month at all. Though I can't feel that my story is all *awesomeness* but it did go a long way. I started with nothing but an opening, a character and some kind of situation. I didn't even have a well-developed plot. But somewhere along the way, characters came in and the plot grew itself. I even felt some of the characters growing their own personalities and sometimes they did things on their own. There was even this guy I didn't like that much at first, but then he did something badass and became awesome on his own. I'm so proud of my characters for doing so much.
I won't say there were a lot of things I felt proud of in this novel, in fact many were written without sense, but there were things that JUST HAPPENED that I didn't even know was going to happen. I think that was pretty exciting. We started out with no direction but we made it to the end.
There were a couple of things that helped to motivate me along the way, of course. Like the people who were cheering me on and the people who didn't believe in me. It was nice to know people supported this ridiculous venture. There were also some people who didn't understand why I would do something like this, but that was fine. Because I knew why I was doing it and that was enough. At times, music also helped to inspire/motivate me. I'll mention My Chemical Romance and The Hush Sound, having influeneced some of my writing. On (rare) occasions the nanowrimo forums were not an excuse for me to procrastinate, they provided some kind of wise (or simply ingenious) words. We write because it's not there - how true that was. It was fun, after all. Along the way, I had stopped to do reserach sometimes. I found myself reseraching on awkward topics such as psychosis, posttraumatic stress disorder, guns and gunshot wounds. And the internet is enlightening, I swear.
At the present moment, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my novel though. Oh well, there wasn't THAT much nanoing drama for me (except when the realisation that I did NOT have a plot actually hit me...) so my journey was pretty fine. Though I do not think I am perfectly sane. But...that's okay.