YES, THAT IS CORRECT. I WON NANOWRIMO!

Yeeeeee. *dances around my room and throws imaginary confetti*

I actually reached 50k on Friday. AND I SCREAMED WHEN I DID. 50K IS  A LOT TO ME.

Here are my stats –

I didn’t think I would be able to reach 50k because I slacked off the first two days. Those were crucial days to NaNoWriMo, but I was being lazy and didn’t write anything, which set me back a lot. From then on, I had lots of catch-up to do. I usually write whatever I can (and that means I rarely keep track of my word count), but I found myself obsessively checking to see that I write at least 2K each day. It may not be a lot to some people, but it is to me.

I had a good motivating system. Let’s say I wrote 1600 words today, I’d go “hey, if I write 400 more, I’ll reach 2,000!” and then I proceed to write 400 words. And then afterwards, I see that my total words becomes 9,400 as a result of the amount I wrote, I’d go “Oh my god, if I write 600 words, I’ll reach 10k! DOING IT.” And the cycle continues because I’m weird about numbers and it has to be visually equal (if that makes any sense). It worked (as you can see in the stats), so yay!

What I found during this process:

• Change is good.

When I wrote, I realized I had to change some stuff. My characters live in the future, and my BFF and I had initially decided not to have them traversing through the universe, but we realized that was exactly what we needed. We were in a bit of a writing funk, not having a clue of what to write, but when we opened it up to include the universe/space, we were suddenly overflowing with ideas. The change of scenery for the story was a great idea because we were no longer stuck on the Earth. The world opened up more and that’s awesome.

• Need to do a lot of world-building.

World-building is totally not a strong suit of mine. (Not for my BFF/writing partner either.) It’s an absolute pain, but necessary. I admit that I can be a pretty lazy author. I’m more of a character-builder instead of a world-builder. Writing is a learning process and I’m actually excited to see how fair in this weakness of mine. Let’s hope I do well, yeah?

• Research, research, research.

There is so many things I do not know about – how to write fight scenes, planets, spaceships, futuristic guns + outfits, world-building in sci-fi – which means I need to do a lot of major research sessions. I need to find more resources about sci-fi stuff and space/galaxy. It’s vast and I don’t know where to start. I’m actually looking forward to it. The things that I have read fascinated me. I had never done a lot of research for the other stories I’ve written, and I rather enjoyed it.

• Lots of great writing resources on Tumblr.

I reblogged a lot of resources on my writing tumblr blog. The Writing Cafè, The Writer’s Helper, and References for Writers are really amazing. Tons of good references there. It’s good to use these resources when you’re stuck or when you’re looking for inspiration. If you don’t hear from me, I’m either reading or drowning in research.

• Scrivener is a magical program!

IT REALLY IS. I’ve been using the free trial version and it’s AMAZING. I can’t wait to buy it. Everything is all in one place. You don’t have to open new Word documents. The split screen is perfect for editing. (I shrieked in delight when I found it. Albeit, the day nanowrimo ended, but whatever) I love it! It is a writer’s best friend!

•  Need to do major edits and rewrites.

A LOT OF MAJOR ONES. So many things need to be done (like apply all the change in setting to space). I’m dreading it, but excited too!

So, I am off to relax for a bit. Then, I will be off to write again and go through the editing process. Wish me luck. ;D