You Are Here

You have arrived. Success. You reached your goal. 50,000 (okay, 59, 820) words wasn’t so bad. You can do it again.

Those were the few words I wrote to myself at the end of my NaNo challenge last year. Back when I was just starting to get the hang of writing, understanding my characters, slowly getting an idea of what a plot really was. Now I look back on them, with two more 50,000 word challenges, and over 400,000 words in the past year, and I remember the feeling. The elation of reaching my goal.

Granted, a year later, going back over the 4^th draft, and comparing it to the part that I wrote last year, I’m shocked to read it. Did I really put that there? Did I really make them have that conversation? Why, oh why, did he do that? That’s completely stupid! It can make the rereading and editing a struggle. Trying to pull in lost threads, little subplots, and sometimes, simple things like keeping the teacher’s names straight (Ms. Myles is science. Mr. Mann is algebra. Ms. Myles does not teach algebra!), and realizing that you want to spell a character’s name a different way, can make it even more difficult.

Not all of it was bad. Oddly enough, there were times that I read something, and think, ‘wow, I don’t remember writing that, but that was genius!’ Then I’ll shape and reform it into something even better.

With the 3^rd draft, I had the opportunity to get a proof copy of my book. Basically, you do all the formatting, make a cover, write an about the author, send it off to the self-publishing company of your choice, and wait for your book to come in the mail. It really looks like a book. An honest to goodness, thick, stick-on-your-shelf book. I jumped for joy when mine came.

Then it was onto the horrid reread. Someone! Hit me with my book, please!

Formatting was screwed up, quotation marks were facing the wrong direction, words weren’t the words they were supposed to be (out instead of our), small little discrepancies in continuity. Things that made me want to hide the book away so that it would never see the light of day again. But I didn’t. I kept slogging through it, a few pages at a time.

My writing has improved over time and I know it’s not perfect yet, but I’m working on it. With NaNo just around the corner, I just have to remind myself, yeah, I’m going to write some pretty bad stuff, but somewhere in there, there’ll be that little gem that will make it worth my while.

--Star Lit