Brewed Thoughts: TGIO (Thank God It's OVER)!

Popping back in the blog after hitting 50k words in my NaNo novel.

YES! 50K!

But I haven't validated yet because of the discrepancy in my word processesor. I'll validate sometime later this week, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop after reaching the finish line. I still haven't written "The End" to my story, so the writing doesn't stop just yet. But I'm just over the moon to have crossed the line because it has been worse than hell going through this month.

Edit: I've finally written the ending, and I've clocked in a total of 55,078 words per NaNo word count verifier.

Just to give you an idea, I've listed down a couple of things that happened so far.

Reverse NaNo became too daunting for me. Up until I crossed 50k, I was still writing 2k words per day, mainly because I began to lose steam early in November. I never got to write below 1k words and to me it felt like a chore day in and day out. But I pushed myself, even to the point where I was hating what I was writing.

My characters weren't speaking to me AT ALL. Maybe my hectic work schedule was part of it, and I was usually fried by the time it was 6pm (or my end-of-work shift). But even during weekends or idle time, there was no word from any of my characters and I think that's why it became so difficult for me to churn out the word count quota. Maybe it was also because I didn't get to plan scene-by-scene. When the time came for me to write, I got stumped, and that was the last thing I wanted to happen.

Using the Dana was a mistake. At some point by the end of the third week, I went to write at a nearby cafe so I could be in a different environment. I brought my Alphasmart Dana with me, and it was a good thing to bring a writing device that wasn't too bulky. I wrote around 3k+ words that night. Then when I got home and went to transfer/transcribe what I wrote, the word program just got corrupted, meaning my 3k words went down the drain. It was a very stressful experience.

I was clearly writing for the word count alone, and that would mean triple work when I get down to editing this monster. Rewrites are going to be a bitch, that's for sure.

I kinda didn't like how my story developed along the way. Yes, the inner editor just wouldn't shut up even if I went deaf listening to music on full volume while writing.

But I'm still thankful I managed to cross the finish line despite the odds. I was worrying about my word count for the entire month that at some point I was really hating the writing experience.

I'm gonna put this behind me for the meantime because I'm so relieved to say that I've finished writing. I'm so looking forward to getting my reward for a good job this year.

And here are a couple of pics during my month-long journey to literary insanity: