I split my April Camp NaNoWriMo desperately trying to finish this never-ending nightmare and polishing this. I basically broke every one of my own NaNo rules just to prove that it could still be done and, boom, here I sit having written over 50,000 words this month.
With going back to edit. With writing really slowly and choosing each word carefully. Without attending a single write-in or doing a word sprint. With a little darling who is possibly allergic to naps or otherwise opposed to them for religious regions.
This is my first off-season 50,000 word month and my first 50k Camp NaNoWriMo and, considering it was all done under a fair amount of duress, it feels pretty good. But, alas, for all my work, though the play is done, the book is not… not quite anyway. I’m still pushing to finish it as soon as I possibly can because there isn’t much more to do, just some final smoothing before I send it to the editor but I am a little disappointed to have to cross the end of April with this darn thing still on going. But this was my biggest word count month of the year so far and I got most of it finished at long last so the challenge accomplished that.
Where do I go from here? Well, first I’ll be doing everything possible to get the non-fiction book finished and out there and then I get to spend at least a month solid working on only fiction to get catch up on my little spreadsheet. Should I work on Mistress Novel? Muppet Play? Something new? I’m so excited to get to work on something other than the Book of Doom that I feel downright giddy at the prospect of getting down to work.
Hillary DePiano is a playwright, fiction and non-fiction writer who loves writing of all kinds except for writing bios like this.
