NaNoWriMo 2016 Day 28: Victory!

nanowrimo_2016_webbadge_winner
All did indeed go well, better even than anticipated. I finished my NaNo Frankenstein project on Sunday, November 27th, coming in with over 800 words to spare according to the NaNoWriMo validator (which usually takes away words but this year gave me an extra 100). If you’re curious, you can see my progress here on the NaNo site. This may have been the most consistent NaNo I’ve had in some 13 years with few days of low progress and even fewer with a huge leap in my word count, but enough ahead to gradually bring the endpoint forward.

The breakdown of the Frankenstein is as follows:

Isabella: 17,156 words
Traps and Treachery: 27513 words
TnT outline: 6197 words

(Note: If they don’t add up, these are my numbers not the validator’s.)

Obviously, since I said Traps and Treachery should end up between 50k and 60k, there’s still a ways to go, but now I can slow down a bit and spread my focus to all the projects I’d hoped to advance this month. The biggest problem with my book is the outline, though. I have only 2 more scene blurbs to write. I did attempt to work on the outline while writing, but I got caught up in the story and didn’t get it done. There is easily enough story left to get in the word count range I want to be, but I need to focus on getting the outline fleshed out first. My outline acts as a very rough draft in that I start to see the connections, and what I need to emphasize or cut. While I could just keep writing based on my initial synopsis and pants the book, the edits required would be much more extensive.

So, that’s what’s on the block for me. Outlining, writing, and editing something completely else.

How are the rest of you doing? Whether you make your NaNo numbers or not, if you’ve written anything, you’re further ahead than you were when November started. Don’t let the end of the challenge be your end point. If you finished your novel, unlike me, now’s the time to plan when you will edit it, and decide whether you’ll take it indie or try a more traditional route.

If you haven’t finished, whether you managed the 50k or not, it’s very easy to set the book aside. There’s often a little bit of burnout after NaNo for me, whether I wrote 50k or 120k. However, I challenge you to do the same as I will be doing. Whether it’s my primary project or not, every week, I will have a goal to keep making progress until the true end is reached. Join me, and you’ll get to the satisfaction of that finished novel whether it’s the first or one in many.

Below are my actual stats. The first number is cumulative, the second per day (you can see I’ve had to lean on my cushion quite a few times already, but I’ve had more days where I went over). I struggled a bit there at the end. No really low days, but 2 days were under the minimum (including the last one). Still, that cushion served me well, bringing me to the end 3 days ahead of schedule.

Day 1 — 1692 – 1692
Day 2 — 3172 – 1480
Day 3 — 3997 – 825
Day 4 — 6242 – 2245
Day 5 — 8102 – 1860
Day 6 — 10929 – 2827
Day 7 — 13158 – 2229
Day 8 — 14622 – 1464
Day 9 — 16329 – 1707
Day 10 – 18565 – 2236
Day 11 – 20835 – 2270
Day 12 – 22911 – 2076
Day 13 – 24349 – 1438
Day 14 – 26090 – 1741
Day 15 – 27979 – 1889
Day 16 – 30313 – 2334
Day 17 – 33010 – 2697
Day 18 – 34905 – 1895
Day 19 – 37038 – 2133
Day 20 – 37913 – 875
Day 21 – 40097 – 2184
Day 22 – 41317 – 1220
Day 23 – 43459 – 2142
Day 24 – 45256 – 1797
Day 25 – 47216 – 1960
Day 26 – 49658 – 2442
Day 27 – 50742 – 1084

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