Audrey A McGee

Guess who’s back??

It’s Audrey and her massively delayed posts!

For those who don’t know! November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, where writers use a deadline of 30 dreary fall days to write an entire novel, with the goal being 50,000 words. I get to do it with my incredible writing buddy Kate G Jameson, an author, editor, and fantasy nerd.

Last year — I succeeded! Well, in my own goals. I wrote 54,532 words, and always wrote at least a bit every day. I didn’t write a novel from start to finish — the month was actually taken up by me writing random scenes that came to mind, in the desperate search for a plot. Good news, I found one.

This year, I’m going back to the same story and actually writing a full draft. Thankfully, I’ll be pulling from several old scenes that I drafted, but I’m hoping to write at least 50,000 NEW words, as well as put together my puzzle pieces from last year.

In the first couple days of NaNo this year, I thought I’d start with the method that finally clicked for me the last time around — writing random scenes that sparked my fancy, no matter where they landed in the narrative. I also spent a lot of time verbally processing, padding my word count with streams of consciousness about worldbuilding, backstory, and brainstorming. It was fun, and I had some little discoveries and good imagery.

But it wasn’t what I had planned. I needed a draft.

Once I had verbally processed my way to figure out an inciting event for the first chapter (one that I had actually half-conceived back in my very first draft in 2017), and once I had correctly named a character I’ve been struggling with, I just started back at the top of my document with:

Chapter 1: Life-Treachery in the Governor’s Garden

I’ve been listening to Nicholas Nickleby on audiobook lately, and I might as well title my chapters, for all the ridiculous things Dickens did with his. Check out this one:

Nicholas finds further Favour in the Eyes of the brothers Cheeryble and Mr Timothy Linkinwater. The brothers give a Banquet on a great Annual Occasion. Nicholas, on returning Home from it, receives a mysterious and important Disclosure from the Lips of Mrs. Nickleby

Last year at this point, I had hit 20,000 words total, with 0 idea what I was doing, and trying to write a blog post so fast that I refused to edit spelling mistakes. I hadn’t hit my groove yet, and was really working hard to keep my head up.

I am now at 18,680 words total for the month, with 11,511 in my chapter-based work. I’ve now traumatized my main characters, introduced five new ones I didn’t expect, and am currently considering killing one of them off. It’s been a completely successful week and a half, and I’m so happy that I did all the groundwork I did last year to get me to this point.

I’m drinking hot chocolate nearly every day, location-hopping with glee, and getting over a cold. Finding a work-NaNo balance might be a little difficult, as I’m super easily sucked into the narrative, but that’ll be my lesson for this year. Let’s see if I can get a full draft done!

Cheers to all fellow NaNoers! How are you doing in your efforts so far?