My NaNo Failures and Successes

With most writing projects I start them full-steam. Short stories, flash fiction and the like are very easy for me to complete. Give me a prompt and a word count of up to 5,000 and I can get the ideas out of my head very quickly. I want to write a novel, however.

And I acutally have. The first time I participated in National Novel Writing Month I started late and still managed to write 50,000 words in the month of November. Not only that, but I completed the novel. I've even gone back and done a couple passes at editing. This novel (quickly titled "Night of Epic Proportions) is not-so-loosely based on my brother's teenage escapades at a Halloween party in rural Ohio. The events mostly happened. I exagerated some and changed all of the names. I added a couple view points that I made up. It's a fun little novel, but it's not publishable. It was mostly as a family joke that year and it was a great way to jump into the novel-writing world with little to no pressure.

In year two I wrote a Post-Hogwarts/Next Generation Harry Potter fan fic novel. I did not get to 50,000 words in 30 days. I wrote 8,700 words that first week and then stopped. In my defense, I married my husband and lost my job in the two weeks that preceded the start of NaNoWriMo in 2010. I did, however, eventually complete this story on my own time. Again, it's not publishable since it's a piece of fan fiction. I still loved visiting this story and writing it almost every day.

But a pattern started to emerge. I particiapted in NaNo but couldn't win. In 2011 I attempted a slasher/thriller/mystery novel. I managed 7,383 words before I quit working on it. It hasn't pushed much further than this either. The plot points are still in my head and I jot down notes all the time for different elements of the story. This one will take a lot of research. I lost most of my research when my computer crashed a couple years back (all of my writing is backed up, thankfully). The potential is still there for this one, but it's not a passion project for me at this point.

In 2012 I finally got back in the win column with "The Tale of Anna Markov (Working Title)." I need a better name of this one. I love this story. I reached approximately 52,00 words with this one but the story isn't complete. I've re-read my writing and made some edits and changes. I defintely want to revisit this one and finish it.

Much like many of my favorite sports teams, I couldn't keep my winning streak going. In 2013 I had an epic failure. "Hidden Moments of America's Greatest Comedy: The Office" was not my idea. I love The Office. It's my favorite TV comedy of all time. I found a fellow Office-lover and she wanted to partner up on a NaNo project. Essentially writing fan-fiction. But I found that fan-fiction for TV shows was very different than fan-fiction for books. And I couldn't make it work. I wrote 789 words and said "nope not this year."

"The Librarian's Assistant" found its way into my head in 2014. Leonora falls into the pages of her favorite book Jane Eyre with her new-found love interest. Very new-found. As in...they are on their first date kind of new. I managed just over 34,000 words with this one and recently re-read the entire thing. I made changes, added some scenes and continued writing where I left off. I don't know if it's publishable but it's a fun story that I want to finish.

Last year I managed another "W" with "Code Name: Alpaca Farm." I don't have a real name for it and one of the characters has an alpaca farm. The alpaca became a mascot of sorts for 2015's NaNoWriMo writing project. I hit 50,000 words halfway through the month and added another 10,000. I did a fair amount of planning and story-boarding for this novel, but I lost my plot along the way. When we last see the heroine, Marigold, she's making out with someone she really shouldn't be having feelings for. At least not at this point in the story. Maybe not ever.

My hopes for this year are to map out a story and not only win NaNoWriMo by writing 50,000 words in November, but to also finish the story itself. A complete first draft.

Now to find a plot...