I am sitting right now in the Bragelonne Editions offices for the NaNoWriMo kick-off party. The excellent Julien Morgan just gave me a copy of his latest book “Breizh of the Dead”
I will keep you posted about this novel! 🙂
nano
Winner!
Nano Winner 2013
Oh joy, I am a Nano winner! I managed to finish with 50044 words!
The great French Municipal Liaison Officer had organised a raclette last Friday and it paned out quite well: we had a great time and some great food and some good word wars, which is always a win!
I have loved this year’s Nano: I am a winner, I now have my first (very rough around the edges) draft. I will leave it to rest for a couple of months before I have a look at it. Nonetheless, it is done and I can continue to move forward with this novel.
The whole Nano experience was a fascinating one. Despite people raining on the parade and pointed out that Nano generates a lot of novels whose quality is disputable, it has a great merit: it makes people write. In a way, I think it doesn’t matter if the books which are produced are not going to be published. Doing a NaNoWrimo is an achievement in itself. It is easy to criticise but unless you have done it, you can’t talk about it. For me, it made me realise something I knew intellectually: I love writing, it makes me so happy, I would even say elated. I had never spent so much time writing for my own pleasure. I have liked every minute of it. The Nano helped me to get out of one of my big weaknesses: the glass head. I see things very clearly and forget to describe them… Needing words for the word count made this major drawback melt away. Another thing you know to be true but don’t quite get it is: to become a writer, you need to be disciplined and write regularly.
The French community was absolutely ace: I met the most amazing people and have serious hopes that some of the Wrimos will become friends. Our ML masterminded the entire operations and she did it with a great maestria. Kudos to her! I am hoping to see more writing workshops and the likes to sprawl next year.
Anyhow, I have done it! I am really happy and extremely tired. My flat is in a real state. The post-nano will mean for me:
– more writing
– a cleaner and tidier flat
– a lovely translation project
– getting ready for Xmas
16 893 words: the final frontier
For those of you who have been following my blog, you know that I am currently doing the NaNoWriMo challenge.
They don’t call it a challenge for nothing, I am telling you. I am finding incredibly hard to keep up with the pace and reconciling a very busy work life. Â It is pretty hectic!
Nonetheless, I have made the choice not to sacrifice my entire social life. Come on! I had to watch Dr Who’s 50th birthday episode. 😉
It was somewhat a mistake. Â I also discovered on the late that doing word wars were a great way to make me write a substantial amount of words in 15 minutes. I will know this for next year. Lesson learnt!
I am lagging behind the recommended average but there are still a few days on, so I have never given up yet! The draft is very rough around the edges but I am quite pleased with quite a few of the chapters. Not everything will go to the trash when I review and edit myself in a couple of months.
More importantly, Â this Nano has made me realise one big thing: I love writing. I love it far more than I have ever known. Somewhat, I have always known it deep down but I have never been honest enough with myself to admit it. Writing possesses me and I totally lose track of time when I write. I can start it is daytime and stop it is night time.
I have been very lucky to receive great moral support from friends and I am really delighted that a very talented illustrator has accepted to draw the cover of my book but this is a story for another time 😉
NaNoWrimo: Write-in and Word Count
Last Friday, I attended the Nano Write-in at La cordée in Paris. I met the most amazing people. I was blown away by the quality of the people I met!
I did manage to increase my word count even if I am lagging behind as per the average suggested by Nano. I don’t mind so much as it is my novel’s first draft. I still want to write something good versus crunching down the number of words. I am vaguely under pressure since I saw a rather threatening reply to my Facebook status from my publisher ‘I am watching you’! X-D
More seriously, I am really enjoying dedicating most of my free time to writing. I have always wanted to spend more time writing and somehow I can’t believe it has taken me so long to come to this realisation. Nano is being a good thing for me. It prevents me from falling into my usual writing downfall: the ‘glass head’.
The ‘glass head’ is this bad habit you have as a writer of omitting descriptions: in your head, it is crystal clear what is going on and what can be seen but it isn’t for the reader. Having to still get the word count, it forces to describe more than I would normally do. I am feeling more at ease with the descriptions now.
One of my other big realisations is the fact that being a writer entails a rather drastic discipline. Writing is like anything else: practice makes it perfect and you have to be disciplined and committed about writing.
I have discovered that I am very committed to my writing. As a result, despite being offered some good translation projects, I feel that I no longer want to dedicate myself to support other people’s projects. I want to build worlds, stories.
I will just follow the best advice I have ever read and those words came from Neil Gaiman:
Write
Write
Write
Write
Write
The Brighter Life 