NaNoWriMo Revisited

Bella Osborne

By Bella Osborne.

Back in July I was at the Romantic Novelists Association conference and I was lucky enough to be befriended by the Birmingham Chapter of the RNA who I sat with at dinner. After a few too many glasses of the fizzy stuff they started making pledges (apparently they do it every year). I was quickly caught up in it and a couple more glasses of fizz later I was signed up for NaNo (whatever that was). I was caught up in the buzz of the evening and nearly everyone else was pledging to NaNo (I was guessing it was the God of Writing or something similar) so added myself to the metaphorical list.

The next day NaNo cropped up again and I thought it wise to seek out a few more details, I was informed that it was actually fifty thousand words in a month. Oh right… WHAT??? After a glass of wine (for the shock you understand) I was suitably reassured that it was doable. Lots of them had done it before and had all become ‘Winners’, a title bestowed on those that completed the challenge. I calmed myself and decided that November was a long way off.

As November loomed so did the supportive e-mails from the other pledgers. Worryingly they hadn’t forgotten. I spent most of October in denial but then I started to pull myself together and I started plotting. As the realisation dawned I started to kick off my next novel in my mind. The rules were clear; no words could be committed to paper before 1st November but plotting and planning was allowed.

So when the calendar flipped over I was ready and writing. Thanks to my tolerant family and fish fingers I was able to stick to my plan of writing two thousand words a day and having Saturdays off. And amazingly I finished NaNo with 50,365 words in the bag. Yippee!

I was thrilled, I’d done the impossible and I had a certificate and badge to stick on my website to prove it. So what did I do after I’d achieved the impossible? Keep up the momentum? Write another fifty thousand words? I’d love to be able to say I did just that but truth is, it was December and Christmas was looming, so I got on the internet and started ordering presents. A multitude of Christmassy things later, the writing momentum was forgotten and so was the half written manuscript.

That is until now. With Christmas all sorted my mind turned back to writing, my fingers started to itch (nothing to do with the cheap gloves from my Aunt) and the scenes started to appear so I decided it was time to dust off the laptop. But what was I going to find when I opened up the NaNo file? I had spent November in a frenzy, I knew I had stuck pretty much to the plot I had planned out but there had been some character takeover bids – there always are.

I decided to be brave and set aside some time to read through my NaNo MS, doing some minor editing, odd typos and the like, as I went. And the verdict? Was it a pile of pantaloons? Was it destined for the shredder? Short answer ‘No’. I know I’m not impartial so my opinion isn’t going to mean much but it was an OK read. The plot hung together, the characters developed quickly and I laughed at the lines I’d written and forgotten about. It was a solid first draft and I was mightily pleased.

What next? I’ve picked up where I left off and carried on writing, I’ve only got another fifty thousand words to write, it can’t be that hard, can it?

Bella has just finished her first novel, Acting on Impulse, which earned her a runner-up place for the New Talent Award at the 2013 Festival of Romance. Every fortnight, Bella will be sharing her experiences and advice as a new author. She also has her own blog which you can visit by clicking here.

by

Bella Osborne

Bella’s first novel, It Started at Sunset Cottage was released by Harper Impulse. She was a runner-up for the New Talent Award at the 2013 Festival of Romance and a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association.