NaNoWriMo 2015 Winner!

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As of yesterday I can safely announce I am a NaNoWriMo 2015 Winner!

NaNo-2015-Winner-Badge-Large-Square

As I’ve stated previously, this was my 10th year doing NaNoWriMo. I wrote the foundations of The Viscount and the Veteran: An American Federalist Tale, the follow-up novel to The General’s Wife: An American Revolutionary Tale.

So what did I learn this year?

– It’s always best to end a day’s writing session with notes about what comes next.
Corollary comment: It is so great when the writing flows and a scene comes together, characters are changed, plot moved forward. But the previous night’s victory is dampened by the looming realization the next morning that, OMG, you have no idea what happens next.

– I really, really, really need to tamp down the inner editor. I try to by putting stuff I need to research or edit in [square brackets] and forgetting about it. It doesn’t always work.

– I am a combination of plotter and pantser: perhaps the word is “plotser” or “pantster”. But I do need that next-morning crutch of what comes next. So the pantser needs a plot plan, even if that plot plan is formulated a minute after the pantsing has finished.

– 50,000 words is basically a really detailed outline.

– I learn the same lessons year after year. I really need to pay attention to my inner writer!

Below is this year’s NaNoWriMo experience as captured by Twitter:

This one should have said: I just wrote ‘manhood’ twice!

This one was in reference to a sex scene. Um, an oral sex scene.

The end.