NaNoWriMo...

So, I "participated" in NaNoWriMo this year. The goal, 50,000 words in 30 days, a Novel/Novella. I put participated in quotes since I got about 400 words in and just died. On the page that is.
I like to consider myself a closet novel writer. I have plots, a list of cool titles, some starts to a couple of synopsis/outlines all on my handy dandy flash drive in a folder titled Novels. Did you catch the plural novels not singular. Yeah, I have high hopes.

I was jazzed, I had a plot sort of, but I just couldn't get passed those first couple of paragraphs. There are tricks to expand your word count, of course. My favorite suggestion I read on the forum was to type potato after every word. i.e., He potato walked potato gingerly potato across potato the potato damp potato foggy potato field. Nice! I could do that, I still have until midnight, (evil laugh) but I won't. The point is the journey not the destination as the great thinkers say.

In my defense, I didn't do the prep work. I didn't have a synopsis, no outline, charactor names...title. Two days before November 1st I signed up. I jumped in both feet. It works for some, but didn't for me. I could have just hit the 50,000 word count and "won". Which is fine, it does jump start creative juices and thats the point. But me being me, I would like to have a semi-complete first draft of a novel on my hands and not mashed potatos.

It was fun though, and here at the end, I have a plot, some very cool character names, and a rough and I do mean rough outline. Next time I'll be prepared, yep I'll do it again. I recommend everyone try it. They are going to do a scriptwriting NaNo in June. hmmmm...I'm going to try it!