With another NaNoWriMo in the bag, and some time to reflect over the holidays, now the hard part happens. Editing. Revising. Weeping.

November’s word dash was a slog.

I’ve learned that with just a little preparation, churning out 50K in a month really isn’t all that challenging. It takes some planning and a lot of ideas to develop a roadmap. Some writers go all out and begin with an actual outline but I’ve learned that I work better with a looser structure. Going in cold means I write a lot of material that gets cut later. I plan so I don’t spend even more time editing. The writing is the fun part – the spit-it-out on the page free-for-all that makes storytelling so fun. The editing and revision is the hard-work part. November is such a pleasure because the focus is on the mad-dash-down-the-hill explosive energy of word-gushing.

Except in November 2023 I got distracted. Somehow I wrote a story that was entirely different than what I planned out. It’s still a little unclear what happened but there it is. I logged the full 50K and change but it’s a glorious bit of a tangle.

Then along came December and holiday procrastination. Actually, having a month to let the dust settle and forget some of the frantic expulsion of words makes January a good month to dive in with some edits. That space of four or five weeks in between is helpful. The dust settles and I can see things with a more objective eye. And no matter how much fun NaNoWriMo is – there’s a lot of work to be done after the fact to shape a story into a submission-worthy document.

By the time December first arrives I’m ready to set aside the pen, turn off the computer, and just sit with an empty mind. When January blows in with winter weather, I look forward to digging into the soft underbelly of the story.

Knuckle down – this one is going to be messy!