On Finishing #NaNoWriMo
November has been an extremely busy month for me, as I’ve been working industriously on writing the second book in my middle-grade series for National Novel Writing Month (or “NaNoWriMo”). I’m very pleased to announce that I have completed the NaNo challenge, writing 50,625 words in the month of November for a total of 61,903 words. I’ve been planning out scenes for Norvia of Walloon Lake for well over a year, so it feels good to finally have the first draft complete!
I love the feeling of satisfaction that comes after that finishing a novel, but I think I’m even prouder of the fact that I stuck with my goal of writing 50,000 words in one month. It’s so important to stay consistent with your writing, and keeping up with at least 1,667 words a day during this time helped to get me back into the groove of outputting a significant word count day in and day out. Writing a 1,000 words a day—my typical word count—will feel easy after this busy month!
One of the reasons I especially love working on my Norvia series is because it’s set during the First World War—an underrepresented era in fiction. I enjoy exploring this unique time in American history, describing the opulent homes, gorgeous clothing, and old-fashioned charm. I spent hours in the lead-up to NaNoWriMo researching all aspects of my character’s world in 1915; poring over maps and old photographs and books of the era and catalogs and newspapers and…well, the list goes on. 🙂 And I found even more areas to research while writing this initial draft, so the process will continue!
Now that my novel is complete, I’m turning my attention toward a 1940s-era Christmas novelette that I’ve been working on since October. I’m also preparing to begin writing a YA novel set in 1935, which is on my schedule for January. I can’t wait!
P.S. Today is my great-grandparents’ 96th wedding anniversary—they were married on Thanksgiving Day in 1922. The “Norvia” character in my middle-grade series is based on my great-grandmother, so this day is always special to me. 🙂
Wonderful. Congratulations.
Joan
Thank you so much, Joan!
Ah, they’re historicals! Even better. Kids need to know there was a yesterday!
Thanks, Niki! 🙂 Historical is my favorite genre.
Fantastic, now revision time!
Thanks so much, Kit!