In my previous post, NaNoWriMo Pros and Cons, I mentioned that I've done National Novel Writing Month for 10 years. Each year I've met the 50,000 word goal, but I've had mixed results in terms of what I've produced. I'm going to go through and look at each year of my NaNo participation, and see if I can pick out things I've gained from them.
This could be long and largely uninteresting to people who aren't me, but I am interested in the experiment of going back through.
2006: Y Rot Skcab
The title is "backstory" spelled backwards. Yes past Douglas, you are so very clever. *Rolls eyes*. So, 11 years ago, I was very interested in film and made very low quality movies (both shorts and full length features) with my friends. We had no budget and very little in the way of acting talent, so most of the things we made were hard to watch. Y Rot Skcab was my attempt at exploring the backstory of a movie that I was trying to create not long thereafter.What I Gained:
Y Rot Skcab was my first year doing NaNoWriMo. I'd been surprised at how simple reaching the 50,000 words was. I also actually ended my story that year, probably just a little bit over the 50,000. There's a lot I like in the story, and there are ideas that have resurfaced in other things I've written as well as other RPG games that I've run. The characters are great, and I think through writing Y Rot Skcab I helped to flesh them out. I learned a lot about my writing in that year, and I gained plot devices and characters to use in future projects. I may well return to Y Rot Skcab's story and those connected to it one day, although I'll have to change it's name. And probably the name of the secret organization in the story (Destroyers of Evil Masters, Objects, Necromancers, Incasing ones, and Creations)...someone really wanted their name to spell DEMONIC.2007: Catch the Wind/The Fiction Game
In 2007 I decided to write a story devoted to the girl I was dating at the time (and a couple that was close to us). Catch the Wind was a thrilling tale of high adventure about a "boy" with strange powers from another world who met up with a girl and together they tried to battle a sinister villain who was controlling strange monsters that were attacking them. Lots of elemental stuff going on. Then the girl and I were no longer dating, and I lost my desire to write a story for her.So, I picked up a story called The Fiction Game, something of a parody of a story I'd been working on for a few years before that called The Reality Game. It was a book that acknowledged it was a book and was generally odd with irony.
What I gained:
Both these stories would go into future NaNoWriMo stories. They tickled my brain and, while they were underdeveloped, they formed the basis for bigger ideas that would come from them later.2008: The Life and Death of Love and Worlds/Shattering Reality
In which I make the same mistake twice and cheat the rules of NaNoWriMo.The Life and Death of Love and Worlds is a very long title for a book. I wouldn't have kept it as that, but I didn't have a better title in what I'd written. This was an interesting tale about a guy whose world was destroyed by a group of people that tear apart parallel dimensions for the fun of it, and so he goes dimension hopping to try to set things right and/or get revenge. This was also written for a girl, and I think that's why I lost steam in writing it.
Shattering Reality was a serial novel I'd been working on at the time and putting out one hurried chapter a week. When the long titled story wasn't happening, I started focusing on SR, and counting those words towards my word count, even if I had already started that story. (Although, I don't remember exactly, I may have ended the first book before NaNo started, so it would have been starting a new book).
What I gained:
Dimension hopping is something that comes up in my writing from time to time. I like it. It interests me. One of my current projects, Looking Glass Moon, uses it a lot. The setting for the RPG system I'm designing might use it a good bit, I'm not sure yet. The long titled book helped me to develop more thoughts and ideas on dimension hopping, and the "evil" organization in the book was great. It will definitely show up again.SR in general was helpful to my keeping writing at a time when I otherwise had a lot going on. There were some good ideas there, and while it's not my best writing, and while I never finished the story (I got a good ways through book 3 and had 4 books planned), I think it helped me to grow as a writer. Sometimes I wish I could finish the story. Perhaps someday I will revisit it, gutting it of the issues that makes it unreadable for those separate from my life (it was largely written for people I knew so it had a foundation in things we had together.)
2009: Castor and Friends
This year I was juggling not only writing, but also being an Municipal Liaison for my local region. I planned gatherings for writers to come together and write together separately, tried to speak encouraging words, and generally did my best to keep things going. I was working with another ML who had been there before me, so my load wasn't too heavy.Castor and Friends was sort of my first foray into a weird dystopia setting. I think I was trying to write something that was critical of society by dialing all it's problems up to 11, but I don't think it came across as terribly insightful or realistic. There was also some weird split personality stuff going on. It was a weird book. I don't like it that much.
What I gained:
Uhm...uh...aside from the general experience with writing more, I think I just gained an understanding of certain things that I don't do well. Odd mindscapes and exaggerations being among them.2010: Blatant Acts of Heroism
My most successful year.The former Municipal Liaison left, putting me more in charge. I pulled in another person from our ranks to elevate to ML and provide aid. We got organized. We advertised. We brought in new blood. Our group thrived. This was also the year that the alternative philosophies to NaNoWriMo came to my attention, and my other ML and I butted heads some.
Blatant Acts of Heroism took the outline from Catch the Wind and improved upon it. Now set with college aged heroes instead of high school, the story focused on Terra, a down to earth girl (yes, past Douglas, you're still so clever) who meets a boy from another dimension and gets caught up in vast adventures against her will. She is pushed on the path to becoming a hero and developing powers of her own, while a psychopath hunts them both.
I also doubled the word count goal. 100,000 words. And I still had more story left to write at that point.
What I gained:
Blatant Acts is by far the best NaNo novel I've ever written. It may be one of the better things I've written overall. It's definitely the closest thing I ever came to really publishing (aside from current projects.)I learned a ton from Blatant Acts, and from the subsequent process of sharing it with people and getting their input. I learned about things that I did really well, and I learned about some things that were critically flawed in the story.
There's a decent chance that I'll turn my attention to Blatant Acts at some point in the future once more, and that it will make it to publication. But I have no active plans for this right now.
2011: Em of Maerd
No longer an ML, I could focus on my writing and my life.Following the Fiction Game's idea, this was a book that knew it was a book. It was super meta and focused on an adventure-seeking, zeppelin driving girl named Em. It's other main characters were a writer who shared my name while being nothing like me and living in a flying invisible castle, and a homicide detective who had a habit of murdering people he perceived as being bad for society. Together (although also somewhat separately since they don't really trust each other or ever open up about anything), they investigate the death of a man named Bernard, while exploring varying forms of fiction and coming to grips with being characters in a book.
What I gained:
A story that I'd definitely like to revisit, and an increased sense of irony and meta humor.2012: Monster Hunter?
New region. New writing group.I honestly have very little memory of what I wrote this year, but I remember gathering 1-2 times a week and hanging out with other writers.
I didn't realize you had been involved for so many years, but I suppose I should have. :-P Sounds like you've explored some really interesting topics. Like you said, it's awesome that your experience has helped you to grow as a writer, and that you have so many ideas you can further explore in the future. :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's been a long time. I think last year I was having trouble pulling through, but I didn't want to fail on such a milestone of 10 years.
DeleteBut yeah, I have a wealth of experiences of differing values that I am glad to have available to me.