It is almost that time of the year again. That time where I feel like Marius up there. That time where I abandon sanity and structure (more so than usual, at least) and attempt to write 50,000 words in a month. Yep, it’s National Novel Writing Month.

I’ve done this challenge two times so far and both times have been able to successfully meet the word count, but I have mixed feelings about it. Sure, I wrote 50,000 words in a month, but could I bear to look at them once I finished? Not so much.

The first time I did NaNoWriMo, I was so horrified by the final project, I put it out of sight, out of mind for a year. A year. But it ended up being a good thing I waited so long, because, by the time I got around to looking at it, I could finally see past the sludge of haphazard scenes I threw in to reach the word count to see the story that I could rescue underneath it all. It took me another solid year to edit it to the point where I could actually enjoy it though.

The second time I did NaNoWriMo was last year. I still haven’t looked at that mess. That story changed on me so completely, I don’t even recognize it anymore. In fact, the whole first half of the novel was spent building up to a wedding – a wedding that I NEVER planned to have in the book! I felt vaguely betrayed by that project.

Now, most of the people on NaNoWriMo will say that it doesn’t matter the quality of the writing as long as you finish something. I can see the benefit of that…but I don’t usually have a difficult time finishing a novel. However, NaNoWriMo does help me to finish more quickly than I normally would and there is always a feeling of accomplishment when I know that I have written consistently every day for a month. Plus, this challenge will speed me along in the process where I can get this story to the editing stage and, hopefully soon after, to the seeking publication stage.

So, I’m giving it another try. And this time I’m tentatively offering up the second half of my story Severance as the novel to be completed. I had an excerpt from this story posted earlier on this blog (https://alioleary.wordpress.com/2016/06/14/story-excerpt/). I have almost reached the halfway point in this novel and I have many ideas – more importantly, I have an ending – for the rest of the story. Will the ideas be enough to write 50,000 words? I’m not sure, but I’m going to give it a shot….and hope that it won’t turn on me like last year’s novel did.

Have you done NaNoWriMo before? What do you think of it? Also, if you want to connect with me during this month of mingled horror and joy, here’s my NaNoWriMo info: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/thimbletack.