Winning the NaNoWriMo 2006

NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month happens every November and has since 1999. The participants and organizers set out to exercise their writing muscles, having nothing better to do (see the history section at www.nanowrimo.org). Since then the yearly challenge has expanded, grown worldwide and has spawned a few Published Authors. YAY!

Now for the rest of it. I set out to write my novel like any other challenger, with determination, my best keyboard and a vague idea of what the story was going to be. I had attempted this before in 2004, but fell 20,000 words short. I was revved this time, I was going to make it, I needed to make it. 2006 had been a rough and rotten year up until then and I needed a serious bit of personal triumph therapy.

On November 1, just after the stroke of midnight when the site opened up for the start of the challenge I enter the first 45 words of my novel, other than the working title. For the rest of the first week the words came in fits and starts due to having just moved to our new address and such. Thankfully my husband was seriously understanding when it came to all of this.

I worked some days just a few hours, others saw me at the computer 8 hours or more. Then there were the long nights where sleep just could not crawl past a burst of inspiration no matter how annoyed the cats got. I almost cried with relief when I passed my 2004 record. Then I nearly cried in frustration when ‘real life’ tried to encroach on my waning writing time. Gritting my teeth I pushed toward the golden goal, 50,000 words – the minimum words to actually qualify as a Novel versus a Novella or Short Story(that’s how the goal was set).

November 27th I uploaded the words that took my total over the mark at 51,082. I made it, I’d won. I was now officially a Novelist. A legend in my own mind! Over the last remaining days of the challenge I expanded the words to 52,673 with little tweaks and changes. I had my Story and it had a beginning and middle and a Really Good Ending! Woooo HOOOOOO!

December 1, 2006 the official period of editing began and I began to look at options for possibly submitting my work to a publisher. Now that is another challenge completely. In one respect the fact that I work in a romance base comes in handy. Some of the romance publishers will take unsolicited submissions. Otherwise its a struggle to first find an agent. Barring that its the Vanity Press. What a world.

The snag with the romance publishers is that they are looking for a minimum of 100,000 words – Yikes! Now I have to take my wonderful story and Double the Poor Thing. Okay, let’s be reasonable. A first draft story done in 30 days, there is going to be room for improvement, expansion and all of that lovely stuff. So now at the dawning of the New Year, in between writing in Helium and other work, I’m doing my rewrite and edit and expansion of my wonderful fantasy romance with elves and magic. I’m hoping to have a completed manuscript ready before the next NaNoWriMo challenge is opened for the year.

I’ll keep you posted my dear readers.