I’ve just passed the twenty thousand word mark on NaNoWriMo, which unless I knock out thirty thousand words in the next few days, I’m not going to achieve NaNo’s 50k or even my own personal 40k target but I’m not too disappointed.  I’ve learnt a lot from NaNo this year and is that not one of the things that NaNo is all about, becoming a better writer and not just knocking out words.  I know the idea is to train us writers to just write, write, write and forget editing till later, but if I can’t take away the continual writing I think taking the lessons that I have learnt this year is more than acceptable.

One of the biggest lessons that I have learnt is that for me planning does work.  The first few chapters of NaNo were very easy to write and those are the ones that I had a rough plan scribbled down for.  Also I’ve learnt a little about chapter structure and pacing.  Getting the right pace is important and I think I have made a right mess of it here but I know that I have made a right mess of it.  So when me and Owen look at what I have done we know the pacing needs attention.

Sub-plots is another area I need to focus on.  I seem to just write fast with the main plot line and forget about the sub-plots.  In this story we have a lot of universe building in these sub-plots as well as the odd thing that we are putting in for later stories, don’t worry I wont leave a huge cliffhanger anywhere 😉

I know that there is more I have learnt from NaNo this year but my mind likes to withhold things like this so I’ll think through it for a few days and get a clearer picture of what I need to do to keep improving as a writer.