Another November, Another NaNoWriMo Conquered

When I started NaNoWriMo this month, I merely hoped it would help me loved Traitors & Tyrants again. I figured that either I would learn to let it go, or I would fall in love. At the end of the first week, things looked promising but I wasn't quite there yet. It wasn't until week two that I truly realized that I had regained my love for this novel.

I didn't write everyday. I had moments when I wished I hadn't committed to the crazy, month-long adventure. It kept me busy. I couldn't read. I was a solid 5K behind multiple times. There were moments when I wanted to give up.

But I conquered NaNoWriMo. I revised part 1 of Traitors & Tyrants, bringing the first part of the novel to a whopping 50,588 words. I had originally hoped to revised the entire novel this November, but it only took me about three chapters (approximately 20,000 words), to realize that perhaps that wouldn't happen.

Now that the month is nearly over and I have time to breathe, I can't help but be grateful that I stuck with this novel throughout the entire month. It would have been easy to quite.

I would have regretted quitting. After all, who wants to ruin a 6 year winning streak? (It's now 7 years.) Doing the easy thing in life is almost a sure-fire way to regret something. Life isn't easy and it's not meant to be easy either. Anything worth having is worth working for. Traitors & Tyrants is worth the work.

Looking back, I'm glad that I didn't tackle part 2 during NaNoWriMo. I knew exactly what to do with part 1 and, while I mostly know what to do with part 2, there are still some big questions I have to answer for myself while I work on the second half of Traitors & Tyrants. Part 2 needs to be revised at a slower pace and I'm okay with that. Part 1 looks incredibly better and has really upped the novel's game.

I'm looking forward to taking a break, but I'm also looking forward to completing revisions for part two. The writing process is a wonderful, fickle thing.

NaNoWriMo 2015: Week 1 Brings Relief

It is the part of the day where I procrastinate for a hour or two before settling in to write my daily NaNoWriMo words. It's been a busy 8 days. I didn't hit my daily word counts every single day last week but I did write something every day last week.

Perhaps the big question now is how are revisions going? When the month started, I was partially dreading Traitors & Tyrants, but I made myself sit down and begin revisions once more. As I worked, it felt almost the same way it did when I began revisions for Hector's POV several months ago.

I've had to recreate a few details, but I'm pretty darn happy with what I have. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's good that I lost all of those revisions, but I will say I was right. The words didn't come out the same way they did last time, and as a tragic as it is, it's also a good thing because I truly believe that these revisions are better than the ones I'd made before. Funny how that is.

As I'd hoped, NaNoWriMo is teaching me how to love Traitors & Tyrants again and I couldn't be more relieved. Now I'm off to go do some more writing today.

Returning to Traitors and Tyrants

It's the first day of NaNoWriMo. I should be writing, but I've reached today's word count so I had to take a break to get some other things done. Of course, that led to me blogging here after I was finished. It's been a week and I'm behind.

I meant to read all of Traitors and Tyrants before NaNoWriMo began. I didn't even get half way through. Fortunately, I did get enough read to begin revisions today. I'm happy with what I've written thus far and am hard at work revising the first chapter. Yes, 1,702 words later I am still not finished with chapter one. I like what I have though and feel like it will do exactly what it's intended for.

I'll continue my revisions this week and finish reading Traitors & Tyrants hopefully by the end of the week. For now though, my goal is just to stay ahead with the reading so I can continue working on the novel. I don't anticipate it being too big of a problem.

So how is writing Traitors & Tyrants again after all of this time?

I can't say I love it right now, but I'm content with it and I'm wondering what it'll look like after I'm done with it this November. If you ask me, that's a good sign.

As for everything else, work and school are keeping me busy. I had to bring pictures into my photography class last Thursday and everyone loved them, so I was pretty happy about that. I'll be sharing them on instagram at some point, but don't ask me when because I'm not 100% certain.

How's NaNoWriMo going for you?