The end of Nano is a weird expereince. You've suffered so much over the month, you're so exhausted and strung out by the end of it, that you'd think the last thing you'd want t do is write another word. But at the same time, you really, really don't want it to be over, because its been such a wild, crazy experience, and going back to interacting with normal people who aren't fixated on word counts and plot bunnies seems ... slightly scarey. Those of you still scrambling for the finish line, of course, don't want the month to end because you want to eke a few more words out of it.
Good news on both counts. If you want to continue, there is no reason on Earth why not. December is nick named NaNoFiMo. If I tell you 'Fi' standds for 'Finishing,' I'm sure you can work out the rest of it for yourselves. Lots of people carry on into December, January ... the orums are still pretty lively. As I've said before, I intend to finish this year, starting tommorrow. I'm going to stage it as a personal Nano-lite challenge - aiming for maybe 30K for the month, rather than the monstrous 50K. Remember a time when you thought 30K seemed was a ridiculously high number of words, beyond comprehension and totally undo-able? That time was just 4 weeks ago.
The good news for those who didn't reach 50K is that they will just have discovered something totally remarkable - it doesn't matter a damn. As long as you're still showing up, reading my over-long emails and writing something, you're not a loser, and you're perfectly entitled to carry on with the rest of us.
So if you're keen to stick about and soldier on, I'm happy to stay in touch with you. By getting this far, you've graduated from newbie to veteran, so I relinquish my mentor's cape and knobbly staff.
My adivce to those who are still game (and I hope that's most of you) is simple:
- Take a day off. Sorry, no more than that. To get more than a day off, you need to have finished earlier than the last day. I know you're exhausted, and weepy, and feel like you have no friends, but, tough. You need to get right back in there. If you don't, you probably won't. This was the mistake I made the first (counts quickly) THREE times I did Nano. So don't fool yourselff by thinking you can take a week off. Also, of course, if you're going to set a reasonable target for December, you can't afford to take days off.
- You may spend the first day 'back on task' tinkering with youre plot, editing, brainstorming and what have you. This is where you get to correct some of the BIGGEST plot holes in your story. Don't stress about all of them - spelling and grammar, making sure character's names are spelt correctly and such like minutae are tasks for another month. But if you've missed out enitre scenes (as I have) or if you have characters in two places at once (as I have) or if you have far too much happening in far too short a space of time (as I have) then this ONE NIGHT is you're chance to go back and make these corrections. Because after that you have to atart moving the story onwards.
- Set yourself a new word count and daily quota. This should be reaslistic - 50K in December is a BIG ASK, what with Christmas, New Year and all that. Also, you're probably drained after November. You can take your foot off the accelerator - BUT ONLY A LITTLE BIT. As I said, I'd like to hit 30K. Reason for that is ...
- You need to set a new rewards programme. If my Nnovel reaches 80K before the end of the month, I'm buying myself the Special Edition of Deliverance on DVD. Classic film. Set your rewards to match how much you feel you can achieve - the point is to give yourself an incentive to stay on target, not to make yourself miserable by failing to achieve impossible goals.
- Be disciplined. This is probably the toughest part of it. You need to force yourself to carry on with the story. With Nano over, a lot of the external motivation, the feeling of gleefulexcitement, is gone. Whether or not you've made it to 50K, you probably feel abit demotivated, deflated and perhaps even a little melancholy. Snap out of it. A daft competition ended, not the GREAT LOVE AFFAIR THAT WILL DEFINE YOUR LIFE.
Nanowrimo has put you on the road to becoming a writer, but you need to keep moving. It isn't a road, really, but a conveyor belt, or an escalator, travelling the opposite way to which you want to go. Stand still, and you'll get further and further away from you destination. Believe me, I speak from personal experience here - you need to be harsh, and drag yourself, whimpering and snivelling, to your work station each day and hammer out your words. Because it would be SOOOO easy just to give up. But you mustn't, because there's a whole damn book out there begging to be written, and only you can do it.
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