What to Do with Your NaNoWriMo Novel Now That November Is Over
Posted on Nov 29, 2010 in The Write Stuff | 5 comments
Tomorrow is the last day of November and the last day of NaNoWriMo. By now you’re either proudly telling everyone how you crushed NaNoWriMo or you’ve relegated the two pages you barely got done to Recycle Bin on your computer. For those of you didn’t make it, better luck next time. But for those of you who have made it through to the end, it’s time to figure out what to do with those 50,000 words you spent your November on. Here are a few ideas:
Print it out. Then spread it across your bed, take off all of your clothes and roll around on it. As you roll around on it, say “I finished. I finished. I finished.” to yourself over and over again.
Throw it away. Yes, I said throw it away. Look you just spent 30 days in a writing marathon. I really doubt your work of art is anywhere near publishable. Nobody looks like a prom queen on the last mile of a marathon. NaNoWriMo isn’t about coming up with a pretty result. It’s about the action of forcing yourself to sit down and write every day.
Read it. Yeah, it’s kinda crappy, isn’t it? Well, that’s what happens when you write according to word count for 30 days. It’s okay. There are tons of NaNoWriMo writers reading their manuscript right now and saying “What was I thinking?”
Extract Some Good Ideas. Even if you’ve spent the month writing yourself into corners, you probably hit upon some decent ideas. Take those pack them away for when you have use to them in future work. Sometimes a witty conversation or nice plot twist can translate into another piece of work.
Get ready to edit the hell out of it. If you’re determined to keep your NaNoWriMo novel and develop it into something worth reading, you’ll probably end up rewriting most of it. So get back on your computer because now’s when the real work starts.
How’d you do this NaNoWriMo and what do you plan to do with your “labor of love?”
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Hmmm…I like the rolling around advice, but I may keep my clothes on.
I finished, and plan to let the MS ferment in my drawer for awhile while I work on edits for another project. When I come back to it in 6 weeks or so, we'll see what happens. I hope it's worth editing, but more than anything it was a lesson of Butt in Chair.
My recent post Early Morning Thoughts on Black Friday
Hahaha! I understand if you want to keep your clothes on. I think that waiting to read it is a great idea so you can actually see it from a different perspective. Good luck on the editing but remember that you finished so you've already won half the battle.
I wrote a post about all those things I'm thankful for like flushing toilets, commercial free Pandora, second chances and this moment. But now that Thanksgiving has passed, I was very, very thankful that my dad didn't yell at my mom about cleaning up the kitchen or putting the god damned table away now. I'm thankful for a peaceful Thanksgiving for the first time ever. It sure makes the turkey and stuffing go down smoother. And yeah I'm thankful for this moment…
I finished a 50,000 word memoir or that's what I think I wrote. I'm putting it away, not throwing it away, until I can stomach it. I wrote about the lessons learned on my blog during this process besides the fact I can put my butt in a chair. I learned I can ignore my children, the house cleaning and work deadlines. I learned that it's liberating to write without the editor sitting on my shoulder. And I'm depressed because like you said now the real work begins…but not for me for a week or so…procrastination is grand!
My recent post NaNoWrimo- Lessons Learned
Congrats to you Michelle! If I were you, I might even wait until the end of the year. The further you are from the work, the easier it will be to see its merits and faults. But congrats on getting through it all. Writing and editing are such different processes and I think we sometimes get caught up in re-editing and re-editing every chapter that we forget to move forward.