Every NaNoWriMo is difficult, but this one felt especially tough. You never know how a story idea is going to turn out till you start writing it, and I just fell out of love with this particular one. Still, having put the effort into planning and researching, I determined to see it through to the end.
Which I did, last night, alongside my NaNo buddies at the local write-in! I had a Coke and a cheesecake to celebrate.
It certainly wasn’t all bad: some individual scenes and character moments were fun to write; a couple of side characters surprised me in how they ended up developing; and I learned (or re-learned) lessons like how to construct a proper mystery, how to approach a historical backdrop I’m not so familiar with, and that I need to keep the plot moving to do my best writing.
Next year will be my tenth NaNoWriMo, so I want to do something special for it. Maybe all my characters could meet each other in a multi-universe Avengers-style crossover. At the moment, I’m feeling inspired by listening to the audiobook of Ulysses by James Joyce (I’m not even halfway through and already looking forward to writing the review of this one). There’s so many different ideas, topics and styles to be found in this novel, and I might like to try something like that, throwing lots of different things at the wall in a single piece of work and seeing what sticks.
Well done to everybody else who completed this year’s NaNoWriMo, and to everybody who at least gave it a go!
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