Nano Not So Much

Well, I didn't do so well with NaNoWriMo this year. I only wrote 11,328 words of the 50,000 word goal. The good thing is that I wrote more than I have in the past 10 years probably. Another good thing is that I plan to try it again next year.

Problems that I came across were that I wrote 11,328 words about two characters doing things but there was really no plot so it was pretty flat. I had ideas about what I ultimately wanted the end result to be but no real plan of how to get from point A to point B, so my characters kept getting up and going about doing the mundane tasks of their daily lives with nothing really happening.

The solution was that, for Christmas, I asked for and received a book called Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell. I Have started to read it and so far I think it will be extremely helpful.

One thing that I really like about the book is that it has exercises in it. This is the sort of thing I need. I have to re-educate myself in the art of creative writing. Correction: I may have to actually educate myself in the art of creative writing. Even though I studied this in college, I really think that maybe I didn't really get it. I had ideas but they never really made it past the drawing board. I think the problem was that I didn't really map out about the plot very well. Instead I focused on a lot of description and emotions which really just resulted in a lot of literary snapshots of a scene but no real scene. Hopefully, all of that is going to change!