I just spent the last thirty days working on a novel. I woke up early every single day to write before work - well okay, every day but one. I wrote every day, multiple times a day exceeding my own expectations, writing further than I thought I could, writing beyond what I had outlined.
Here's what I learned:
1. I am capable of getting out of bed an hour early every day to write. I am not a morning person. But it's what I need to do to make the time to write.
2. Though I am a night owl, I had some of my most productive writing sessions before the sun came up. Evenings, for me, are full of distractions and temptations I can't resist (read: prime time television) If I want to make writing part of my day, mornings may be my answer. And coffee of course.
2. A little brainstorming goes a long way. I never thought taking ten minutes to think about my writing could be all that beneficial. But several times this month, I picked up a pen and paper and just started writing my next scene. In just a few minutes time, I gave myself a jump start on what I could work on writing that night when I had more than ten minutes. It helped me overcome that glaze of starting at the cursor, trying to figure out where to begin.
So now what? For starters, I need a break from this story. I need to set it aside and come back to it in a few weeks with a fresh eye before I can do any editing and revising. I hope to get it to a point where I can consider submitting it for publication, but optimistically, that is a way down the road.
One thing I do know, is I'm ready to start working on something else. While working on this novel I've had a few other ideas emerge, ideas I'd like to explore and see where I can take them. Perhaps the biggest challenge of NaNoWriMo is to keep the writing momentum going.
But in the end, I have a novel. A beginning, a middle, and a end. 350+ pages of my ideas down on paper. And that's a really good feeling.
