Everyday Canvas

NaNo 2017: As I learn from it…

This entry is about my 2017 NaNo Experience and for me to refer to; however, anyone can read it if they wish.


I almost didn’t do Nano this year, but then, I’ve been missing it having skipped it in 2016. Three days before Prep, I said to myself why not? If I write 10,000 words of something, it is still something, better than nothing.

The day before prep I was looking at Psychology Today. There I saw an article about adopted kids and grownups who sometimes are troubled by their early experiences, etc. The idea felt good.

So I questioned myself:
Can I twist this idea? Check
Can I come up with a protagonist who can shoulder this idea? Check
Can this idea (or problem or the resulting conflict) sustain itself until the end of the novel? Check.

The first day of the Prep covered these ideas anyhow; so, I winged a few things on those for starters. Then I kept winging it throughout the prep month. It ended up some of those wings were broken or clipped, but never mind, something like a story took shape.

What helped me the most during the writing of the novel was mostly the characterization and the last detailed outline. Then came the possibilities of anything, such as how many ways can I skin an idea, how many ways can something go wrong, etc.

What would probably have helped more would be doing only one outline and going back to it and perfecting it as I went along. Doing the outline three times or doing three different outlines was a waste of time, I found out.

Then when November came the last outline helped the most, although I changed it greatly during the writing process because of new characters and twists surfacing here and there.

What irked me the most was that, because I like to dive into muddy waters to make the writing process more interesting for myself, during the prep I decided to write the novel from the first-person point of view and in the present tense.

The first-person POV is not so bad. I have written in it several times and it does have a way of penetrating into a character’s psyche.

The present tense, however, just about killed me. Especially after the midpoint sometime when the leading characters became real people in my mind. When I intensely got into the story and the characters, I ended up writing long sections in the past tense, not once or twice but many times, and then went back to turn those into the present tense. I shall never do present tense again for a whole novel, at least not from only one character’s POV.

Finding time to write was another problem, but I surprised myself by getting creative about it. Rather than sitting down to write for two hours, I wrote most of the novel in about 250-400 words at a sitting after imagining what I would write while I did other things. This way, I wrote over 2000 words daily. I think the least I wrote was 900 words one day when I had a doctor’s appt. Then the most I wrote was 3500. I think I hit the 50 K mark a day earlier than Thanksgiving, but the novel was far from finished. So, I rushed. At the last day of the month, at the word count of 64,694, I finished it (rushed it a bit, but no sweat, if I want to do anything with it, I can always rewrite.) By the way, the novel also needs at least one or two halfway decent sex scenes, which I skipped at the time by only suggesting them. Since the main character got interested in a guy seriously enough and it had an impact at the ending, those scenes are necessary.

All in all, it was another great experience, except for the present tense bit and Windows 10 dumping me every now and then. Talking about windows and dumping, I discovered that dumping occurs more when I keep my watch on and if I have a metallic bracelet. So, having learned another lesson, as I am writing this entry, my arms are bare. It doesn’t mean Windows 10 won’t dump me at all, but there is a difference between being dumped twice or 200 times during one entry.

Come to think of it, there was another mishap. Sometime during the mid-month, Microsoft decided to install updates on my computer. That meant any file open in the Word would go. Since I have been conditioned to deal with their surprise installments, I frequently save everything I write, like every couple of paragraphs or so. What I didn’t count on was that MS would cut in half an already saved word file, which was the Prep notes. The file was open because I referred to it, but I wasn’t adding to it or writing in it. Luckily, since I had the notes in my WdC port, I recovered them immediately, except for half the photos.

Another thing, when I am writing a large piece or an important project I put the laptop in an airplane mode, which probably helps in some ways, but not where Microsoft is concerned. They get in even when my laptop is in the airplane mode, &*!%$!

Here is another note for me for next time: Keep the maps and photos in a separate folder and number them. If I paste them into the word file, note their numbers, too. This numbering goes for the WdC Prep file as well. So even if the photos from the word file is gone, I can refer to them from the NaNo photos file.