Sunday, November 27, 2011

The Challenge Completed


The NaNoWriMo official word count goal is 50'000 words. When I started NaNo, I thought this sounded like a great deal of words. More than I could handle almost. But as the days of NaNo passed, and I ripped through the word count, it suddenly didn't seem like much of a challenge.

My first novel, The Portal ended at about 51'800, written in ten days. I'd finished first of anyone in my house. What was I going to do now? I couldn't go back to normality yet. Not while everyone else was still novelling away. And so it was that my next challenge was born.

50'000 words wasn't enough of a challenge. I set my sights higher. Twice as high to be exact. My new goal was 100'000 words. Stupid? Yes.

I started The DARE Squad as my second half of the word count. The days slipped passed, and the word count rose, not as fast as for The Portal but fast enough for me. I was well on track for a huge win, even with a day off for my birthday.

Today, after a huge push over this weekend, I have finally finished my huge, crazy goal. 100'127 words now sit on my computer. Two novels await editing. And me? I want a rest for a day or so. I want time to rest my eyes, and my wrists. Then I'm ready to jump into the editing process. My next goal? Edit 100'000 words. It might take more than a month though.

12 comments:

  1. Hi Imogen

    WOW! that's a amazing amount in such a sort time, well done :D

    Are you happy with how both of them turned out?

    Legolas

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  2. Legolas, I'm actually quite happy with my novels. I can see a lot of work needs to be done to make them nice, but they've got promise, and I'm so glad to have two drafts to work one.

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  3. Whoa. 100,000 words and two different plots in one month. Enough said. Think you might post them eventuslly?

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  4. JT, I'm not sure about posting the whole of the novels. I doubt anyone would be interested enough to keep coming back and reading them. But I may post some excerpts if you think anyone would be interested in them. Once I've done some editing though.

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  5. Wow! You did amazing! Whats your secret? Lots of coffee or something? Have fun editing!
    ~
    Autumn

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  6. Oh my goodness, congratulations, Imogen! You're amazing. :)

    I for one would love to see some excerpts....

    Oh, and editing? That's the BEST part! I love editing even more than writing, actually. :p

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  7. That is pretty amazing!! I write kinda slow so 50,000 words is a lot to me! Congrats on your big win! Enjoy your rest :)

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  8. Holy crap....that's a lot of words! I'm totally impressed. I wish I could write that much in a month, but I'm slightly slower.

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  9. Autumn, actually I didn't drink much coffee at all during NaNo. That might be because I kept getting so into my writing that I forgot to drink the coffee. Too much cold coffee taught me to drink it first, then write.

    I don't think I have a secret, except that I absolutely love pushing myself to my limits trying to achieve stupid goals. That and I absolutely love to write.

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  10. Victoria, I'm really looking forwards to starting editing my first novel. I'm just waiting for a free afternoon where I can sit down and read it through in one sitting. I really want to make that story shine!

    I'll see about posting s few excerpts once I've actually done some revision and editing.

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  11. J.A.Bennet, I've always been a fast typer, and I think that the fact that this was all so new to me had a hand in it too. That and I'm pretty stubborn when I make a goal. I like to reach it, no matter what.

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  12. Kate, I bet whatever you write in a month is of higher quality than what I write. I like to just get the words on the page and worry about making real sense on it later.

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