the long, long process of writing a novel.

Sup? Alright, so I won NanoWrimo last year at just over 50k. Possibly the hardest thing I've ever done in my life - especially when my computer pooped itself, and the first 8k vanished five days into the competition, meaning I had to rewrite it all. So technically, it was like 58k.



Anyway, the point is, I didn't even finish the bloody story. Those who suffered my many complaints during that month will know that, two hours before the deadline, I resigned to "and then the warehouse exploded". What can I say, dude. There's no defense for that. But I know if I added on another 20k, if that, the draft would be finished. Coolbeans right? Nope. Because for all the effort, and all those words, very little of that thing is salvageable unless I do some really, really hardcore rewriting. As in overhauling the whole manuscript, which is...kind of a burn, because I put so much work into that draft. Even though I want to punch myself in the face when I make myself re-read. It's utter drivel.

Lately I've been thinking that I've put too much pressure on myself lately to finish something. I hate feeling unaccomplished and sort of leaving things there like 'lol derp, later'. My next most complete project is a YA paranormal (like everything else lul) at about 20k. Then it's...14k, then 10, then 8 and so on. So most of it's on the not even half finished end of the scale, if we're going by the 50k average.

That being said: who gives a shit? I'm 17 and in my first year of a bachelor's degree in psych. I probably won't be published in the next ten years, or the ten after that. Maybe I'll never reach that stage.

But writing is the one thing that I truly love to do. It's the only thing that's always, always on my mind; I could be in a lecture, sitting at the station, chillin with a delicious delicious McFlurry and there's always going to be some bit of my brain trying to figure out the motivation of one fictional weirdo or another. When someone asks me how my novel's going, I never have any idea what to say, but I'm like :D. Idk why I think I'm just weird.

Most of the stories that I'm completely in love with, with characters I adore, will probably never reach the halfway point. Which kind of blows. I think everyone should get to tell their story, even if they were unfortunate enough to be born of my mental processes.

Someday, though, something will click. And I'll finish the first draft, completely annihilate it and write it a couple more times, and then I'll send it off to one of the (very very few) literary agents in this country and see what's doin. (Though most of my stories are set in the US. Hurr hurr.)

But even if that never happens and I never get to type or scribble the end at the close of a story that's been on my mind for years, it doesn't really matter. I already know the ending anyway.