When I did my NaNoWriMo post, I had intentions of creating a follow up post in December. December came and went and I made the excuse in my head that I was too busy with family festivities. Then January came and went, then February, then March. You get the idea. So here I am, finally writing to update you on how NaNoWriMo went. It went great! I’ve never enjoyed myself more. I spent over 34 hours getting to my 50,000 word goal and those hours made me feel more alive than any other time. That deadline really brought out the excitement in me. I couldn’t wait to get home from my day job to sit down and write. I attended virtual write-ins and went to local write-ins as well. It was so exciting to connect with other authors. Even though we were all working on something different, we were connected by one common goal: complete 50,000 words in 30 days.
The author community is an amazing thing. We support each other, encourage each other, and provide advice. We technically are opponents in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn’t stop us from feeling the constant need to help each other out. I received a lot of encouragement throughout November and the encouragement continues. It really pushes me to write more, to write better. I’ve started going to a local writers’ group. I’ve expanded my network of writers and it just amazes me how good authors can be at providing criticism without being aggressive and mean.
I purchased Scrivener and am using it to organize my book. Wow! What an amazing tool! I definitely would recommend it. I let my book cool until February and came back to it with a fresh set of eyes. I’ve read through it once and revised a couple small issues and left comments for the sections that require larger edits. My next step is to take different sections with me to my writers’ group to ask for advice on how to move forward with them. Hey! Maybe I’ll even post it here for some advice!
I’m going to be adding a couple more posts to explain a little bit deeper why I had been pushing off creating an update post and why it’s taken me so long to get back into the swing of things. I want to keep my posts somewhat short so that my readers don’t feel bogged down by the sheer length of the post. Look out for that one soon.
