Stuart Aken: November Was NaNoWriMo Month: So What?

The major project for November was the completion of the first draft of book 3 of the fantasy trilogy, A Seared Sky. The book stood at 111,079 words when I set out on the NaNoWriMo journey and it ended up at 194,352 words. That’s 83,273 words during the month, though I actually completed the book on 21^st November.

I accompanied my wife to the frozen north to visit her relatives and friends for the pre-Xmas get-together and that took a few days out of the month. I read 4 books and reviewed 3 of them; the last one was reviewed in December. And I completed 4 blog posts. I also wrote a couple of poems I’m intending to submit to contests this month. So, all in all, a pretty satisfactory month’s writing.

The end of NaNoWriMo generally leaves a void to be filled. I’ve been pretty busy with other things, so it’s only today that I’ve started feeling the need to create again. Lots of ideas for short stories, and there’s a novel brewing somewhere in the back of my mind.

The 1^st volume of the fantasy trilogy was supposed to be published this month, but, as can happen in the publishing world, a technical issue has delayed that. No-one’s fault: just one of those irritating things that sometimes occur. Because we’ll miss the Xmas window, we now intend to publish in Spring 2014. So, the marketing and pre-launch activity I was expecting to participate in is no longer necessary and I find myself with a small spell of spare time. Those poems, stories and the novel start to beckon. And, I think I might put one of my ebooks out as a paperback: possibly The Methuselah Strain. There are still large numbers of people who don’t yet have the facilities or the desire to go digital and it seems a shame to exclude them from the circle of readers.

The pie chart shows how my time has been spread over the month. I urge you to do something similar, especially if you have a tendency to procrastinate; and what writer doesn’t? Keeping a record of time spent on the various aspects of your writing activities can be surprisingly informative and sometimes a little alarming!