NaNoWriMo Draft Completed

I am pleased to announce that I completed the first draft of a new novel through NaNoWriMo November challenge. In fact, I finished my 51,199 words a week and a half earlier. Getting back to novel writing was like immersing myself in warm bath water, it felt good and familiar. It did what I was hoping it would do, renewed my desire for writing fiction. It was all there, everything I've learned over the years, coupled with new found instincts that developed over time.

The next step is to let the draft rest for a couple of weeks before doing a read-through. While it's resting, I am working on story development involving character work, plot, and research. Writing the first draft tends to be the heart and feel of the story. The drafts that follow it are to develop what's already there without losing its feel and essence.

For development, I'm working with Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. She's a proponent of short assignments, and now, so am I. That means that you never have to take on the entire project all at once. With short assignments all you ever have to do is take a scene, a moment, an image, a character, or whathaveyou, and just work on that. What is a novel if not a compilation of small moments strung together by theme and feel?

Every day I feel like exploring a different aspect of the story. I've learned that I don't have to work on it linearly. Once the rough draft has been put down, whatever wants to be developed is up for grabs. I believe that eventually it will all come together. If I'm only working on what I feel good about at the moment then I never have to risk losing the feel through the surgical process of writing many drafts.

CREATING MARINA