In which I Fail NaNoWriMo...or not.

I would like to congratulate all winners of NaNoWriMo 2011! Winning is no easy feat.

If you follow me on the Twitter, it's no secret that I have failed NaNoWriMo, for the second year in a row. Although I believe it is not a complete loss.

Firstly, I finished the month with writing just over 30,000 words and I have to say that I am very proud of every one of them. Crappy or not. This is the most word outage that I have had in my entire writing life. Averaging close to 1,000 words a day is amazing for me.

Writing does not come as easy to me as I wish it would. If When I finish this first draft it will be the single most hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life. Just because it doesn't come easy to me doesn't mean that I don't enjoy it on some level. I love editing what I've already written. I can edit like a mad house, it's getting the words on the paper the first time that is a challenge for me.

Second and most importantly, by forcing myself to write almost everyday I have come up with two mind blowing plot twists. I blame this for not reaching 50k. Once I thought of the first twist, I edited my outline to accommodate it. Then as I was editing for that twist, I thought of the second and added that in as well. I broke NaNoWriMo rule number one, DON'T EDIT!

I have never been a force-yourself-to-write advocate but now I see why some writers do it. It really gets the juices flowing and all the thought process to get those proverbial juices flowing can lead you to some great revelations and ideas.

I am so passionate about this story that it drives me crazy. I want to shout the plot from the rooftops but as an aspiring author I'm terrified someone is going to steal my idea and be awesome with my awesomeness. I'm not awesome very often so when I am, I savor it :) I haven't even told my mother the detailed plot yet because I want her to experience the surprise when I let her read the completed first draft.

In conclusion, my NaNoWriMo fail maybe wasn't a fail at all. Yes I failed the ultimate goal of nano which is to write 50K, but the underlying goal is to get people writing and I think I made it out of the nano madness with a few scraps and bruises to show off.

How was your NaNoWriMo expierence?