NaNoWriMo VICTORY!

Victory! Victory! It tastes so unbelievably sweet :-)

Ahhh... so I did the mad dash to 50K words, and my novel isn't done. Here are a few things I learned from NaNoWriMo:

1. Writing a novel is very, very different from a poetry manuscript

How so? Ugh... writing a novel is all about consistancy, about keeping the creative energy flowing.

Poetry, on the other hand, is about bursts of brilliance, and then expanding on them. When I was working on my novel, I never had that frustrating "writer's block" I get with poetry. I'd just meditate on my novel's central images, and the words would keep flowing.

2. Noveling is like writing poetry!

LOL don't you love the way I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself ;)

No, but in all seriousness, at times I would treat my prose like poetry, and that's when the magic would happen. I think poets can make great novelists. I'm a poet, but certainly not a "great novelist," yet anyway. Which brings me to my next point:

3. Noveling takes a butt load of time

And I mean, a butt load.

But you know what? It feels so damn good to write, that I wouldn't want to be doing anything else.

4. You can fall in love with your characters.

I had to kill off my MC's wife just because I was jealous of her. Benjamin Brutus is so unbelievably dreamy... :-)

5. It is utterly impossible to write a novel in a month

LOL!

But it was one hell of a journey. Will I be back? You betcha!

I've learned a lot about myself along the way, and produced a manuscript that, yeah, needs a lot of work, but someday, someday, I'll be damn proud of it.

So, back to poetry? Or do I keep going with this novel?

Isn't it wonderful to have choices :-)