Current mood:	accomplished
Entry tags:	nano

Day 29=Success.

51,132 / 50,000 (102.3%)

Today went pretty much exactly as expected, and I have succeeded. :)

I'm going to read it through in one sitting while editing tomorrow, as planned, submit it to the website, and then I'll be 100% done. If you want me to email you the thing, go ahead and ask me in comments or email me at chilango2 at gmail.com.

I also finally found a title I was happy with, "Another day, Another dollar." It became a repeated line throughout the nano and it wasn't until I finished it and realized that that the choice became obvious.

Be warned that the story contains hyperbolic political rants, hyperbolic rants about work in general, and uses religious imagery and themes on occasion for comedic effect.

Now, I will discuss how the actual process of writing this thing went for me.



While this was challenging for me, I wouldn't go so far as too say it was hard, if that makes any sense.

I started late on the 5th with barely any writing done (less than a day's worth), and in the ensuing days I did no writing on a total of five additional days, and am finished a day early.

That effectively means I reached 50k words in 20 days, or an average of 2500 words per day. It just so happens that most of the days I *did* write were about 2.5k days, with 2-3 days that were 3k or higher.

I really feel like breaking it down on a logistical level helped me. It gave me a concrete word goal to try and reach each day, and some days I definitely had to push myself to get there, but by and large the "just a few hundred more words" helped make sure I *did* do that. I've also had the benefit of seeing Bev attempt nanowrimo a few times previously, so I had some idea as to the pitfalls that can befall a writer attempting it.

Probably the biggest problem with Nano is that it's set in November, which is really a silly month to do it in, it has Thanksgiving, which by itself is sufficient, students are in school, that sort of thing. I however, had the dubious good fortune of having practically no distractions or demands on my time.

Other stuff that helped:

1) I came up with the idea for this nano on November of last year, and its kind of been in the back of my head since then, slowly stewing. This really helped, as I had a general plot structure ready way ahead of time, had time to think about what I could put into it, and so on. I had a whole list of 'work horror stories' that I felt could go into it as well.

2) It was fun story. A nano has to be really fun, I think, to be doable, it has to be a story you enjoy telling, basically. My story ended up being alot of extended rants about work, society, and so on. I enjoy a good rant, and this allowed me a venue in which to do several.

3) The decision to use quotes of various songs, etc. At some point, I came up with the idea of using movie, song or other quotes from various sources as an 'opener' for alot of the 'sections' of the nano. These helped in two ways, first, they worked as a springboard for that section, I often found myself writing the section in a way that reflected the quote, and as such the quote gave me an idea as to what to write about. And of course, the quotes boosted that all important word count.

4) laislabevita edits and comments. While she deleted a word here or there, her comments and requests I clarified certain sections ended up adding a great deal to my word count, as well as of course making it a better, more comprehensible story.

5) The stories picked up from elsewhere. There were plot elements or horror stories picked up from various other people, especially laislabevita and mayhap that further added to things I could talk about in general.

6) Steady, minimum amounts of work. Again, breaking it down to "This is the mninimum I need to do each day" really helped me. It was sometimes a struggle to reach that number, other times I flew past it easily, but it was a reachable goal every day I actually had time and energy to write except one. The splurges of 5k words other nano writers can manage are, I think, entirly beyond me, so I couldn't afford to fall too behind.