NaNoWrapUp or, Winner!

So, my word count has been verified and I am a 2012 NaNoWriMo winner 😀 yes indeed, I wrote 50,000 words (and then some) in the fine month of November, and as we go into the last day, I hope anyone reading this who’s making that last push towards the finish line accepts my best wishes and cheerleading efforts, and a huge well done for when you cross that line and hit that target! For those who’ve already done it, congratulations! For those who didn’t quite manage – if you’ve got even the barest bones of a novel as a result of doing NaNoWriMo, you’re a winner in my book!

So how did my NaNo go? Well, it’s an interesting one. Originally, I had another idea for a story that was going to be my main NaNo, but a few days before it started, an idea came into my head. An already established character in Christopher Maine’s series, during her time at the Terra Firma Fleet Academy. A character I have an affinity for, because she’s based on me, essentially going through the upheaval I’ve been going through recently – leaving home, moving in with new people I’d never met before, making friends, going to new classes and learning new things. Those are the bare bones of the plot; I’ll leave the rest for you guys to uncover when you read it, hint hint 😉

So this was just going to be a little side story – my main NaNovel would be this idea I had a while ago, the one I’d been planning for and had even written a little bit of it (don’t worry, that bit wasn’t going to get used for NaNoWriMo, before I get accused of cheating!), and then when I needed a break from that plot and a little bit of light relief, I’d write about this character’s antics in the Academy.

How did that one work out? …. not like I’d planned it, let’s put it that way.

The original plans got shelved when I started writing this story, tentatively titled “Blue”, and realized that I loved it. Starting with an already-established character (and the blessing of her original creator, Christopher Maine, who gave me permission to create the origins story for her) really did help, because I already had the centre of my little universe – all I needed to do was build up that universe around her. At first I expected it to be difficult, but when it started, it came easily. Characters started appearing in my heads – some of them are ones you’ll recognize from the Christopher Maine books, as you should have all read them, I’ve pestered you guys enough! Others are ones who are entirely my creation – for example, two of her close friends were minor characters, both appearing just a couple of times in the main series. In mine, they’re main characters. However, her two best friends are completely mine, and they both have fairly well-rounded personalities and I’m really pleased with that, because characterization is something I usually struggle with a lot.

Another issue I’ve had this time is attempting not to Mary-Sue, but not with the main character – she has plenty of flaws, the real challenge is finding the good bits about her! (I’m totally kidding, she’s a lovely character but she definitely has her flaws) – it’s her best friend, who at the beginning was just a lovely guy and… yeah. Really vanilla, everything nice and sweet and kind about the world. I needed to find a fault for him, but instead of just throwing in a random one like being really nice and sweet and kind but having a random murderous streak, I looked at his positive aspects and figured out which ones could become negative. He’s loyal to a fault, doesn’t see when people are taking advantage of his kindness and his loyalty is often misplaced. I considered giving him a temper, but a) my main character already has plenty of that, as highlighted by the fight scenes I’ve put her in over the last few days, and b) that’s just not his personality at all. I’ve let the characters run away with themselves, developing their own personalities until actually, I find it hard to talk about them as characters – they’re more like people. I’m not saying they’re imaginary friends, I’m not in danger of having tea parties with them yet, but it’s been really useful because it means they write the stories, they decide what happens – I just have to get it all typed out before they go off on another tangent.

Usually, being ill during NaNoWriMo is a godsend – extra time for writing, yay! However, I’m ill at the moment and it’s not too shiny – I’m sure my wordcount would actually be even higher than the not-too-shabby number it currently stands at, which will stand as my NaNoWriMo final count unless I get any more done today (and manage to validate it in time). I’ve really just felt too ill to write at times, wanting nothing more than to curl up under my duvet and sleep it all away. I think for the last two NaNoWriMos, I’d stay up until stupid o’clock in the morning writing, but sleep has become a precious commodity at uni, so I’ve not been nighttime NaNovelling either (I’m on a bit of an alliterative kick at the moment, can you tell?).

So, what next? It turns out that there is life after NaNoWriMo, although it can seem pretty hard to believe when you emerge from that heady fog thinking “I just wrote 50,000+ words!…. now what?”. Well, there’s always NaNoEdMo – National Novel Editing Month, although for me I believe it’ll be NaNoFinMo, as I attempt to mould this novel into something publishable by June 2013 (I fully intend to take advantage of that CreateSpace offer I get for winning!). Once it’s finished, THEN the editing can begin! In short, this could keep me occupied for a long time.

When I started uni, I was worried I wouldn’t have much time for writing. I’ve found instead that actually, I have more time for writing than ever, because I actively make time for it. I don’t have homework – I set aside a little bit of time each day to work on my pieces for assessment, but once that’s over, apart from eating and sleeping, I can write all the time. Having the privacy of my own space is great, but so is being able to go into the lounge and socialize when I get bored of my imaginary friends and want to speak to some real ones for once 😉

So, onwards into December. If NaNoFinMo/EdMo isn’t your thing, it’s nearly Christmas! Oh, and there’s something called a life – I suppose it wouldn’t hurt any of us to get one, now that we’re not spending each day furiously scribbling/typing away, trying to hammer out these words. Now then, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to have high tea with some of my characters, they’re waiting quite impatiently for me.

 

Signing out (and watching the smoke rising from the keyboard as it breathes a sigh of relief),

Maddy x

(P.S – Want a better idea of what my novel is about? Buy Christopher Maine’s “Tales From The Terra Firma Fleet” series so far on your Kindle, tablet, smartphone or anything else with the Kindle app on it)

Dragon Flight: Renegade – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dragon-Flight-Renegade-Tales-ebook/dp/B007B3CZF2/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1354267570&sr=8-5

Dragon Flight : Wrath – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dragon-Flight-Wrath-Tales-ebook/dp/B0089CLIT8/ref=pd_sim_kinc_1

Dragon Flight: EndGame – http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dragon-Flight-EndGame-Tales-ebook/dp/B00A9HSQ8W/ref=pd_sim_kinc_2

(P.P.S – He also has a blog! www.christophermaine.wordpress.com )

(P.P.P.S – Thanks for reading!).

aaaand I have been bitten by the writing bug once more.

I have written over 13,000 words today.

13,000 words!

And, they are 13,000 words which I’m immensely proud of and hopefully won’t require much editing. One chapter is 7,900 words, but it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever wrote, and I really am rather proud of it. Of course, it can probably qualify as a short story in its own right, but oh well – it might mean that once I’ve written this series, there’ll be a companion short story/novelet that goes along with the series about this character.

It’s been quite interesting to delve into the past – characters whom I hadn’t even planned or thought about before have popped up, although none will appear again apart from the character narrating it, and in the end it really explains why the character is the way she is – it’s been a very good process for me as a writer to do it, because it’s definitely going to help me with writing her in the rest of the series, and her life took some pretty interesting turns that, until I found myself writing them, I wasn’t even aware they’d taken!

So, my writing tip for the day is,  write your character’s backstory in short-story format. You never know – it could end up forming an important part of your novel, like mine did, or it could just turn out to be a helpful exercize in how to write your character in the future. Either way, I’m sure it’ll help you just as much as it’s helped me!