In short, the goal is to write 50,000 words in the 30 days in November. Easy, right?
I've reached the goal two of the last three years, but that doesn't mean the books are readable. The year I didn't reach the goal, I didn't write anything useful. And the last novel I wrote was not a good one. It's on my shelf, but unless you come over to read it, no one will ever read it. I might be able to salvage it someday, I just don't want to make that effort at this point. It's that broken.
NaNoWriMo is good for me because I do a lot of editing while I'm writing, which means that I'm generally slower than most people and this is a good exercise to just get things on the page. A lot of things on the page. Sometimes, in an effort to just keep going, I'll throw a phrase out that I end up liking better than what I had been struggling to get just right in my head.
I'm more excited for this year's novel idea than I was for last year's, and I was excited last year. I thought it was going to be a winner of a story. The problem I had last year was that I got so enamored of the details I'd come up with that I forgot to think about the whole story. As a result, I got to what should have been the climax and realized that I hadn't built up to it at all. So the story just kind of dies. I'd like to avoid that this year, so I'll be spending time planning out how the story all works together.
If any of you are participating this year and want a writing buddy, my user name is cossackboy and you can find my profile here. I'd love to help motivate you and get through this crazy fun together.
