This morning, around 3:00AM or so, one of my stories finally hit 50,000 words!!! Yes, I’m referring to my nanowrimo* one, and no, I won’t shamelessly advertise it here. But part of it is on AFF if anyone wants to read it >.>

Now, if only I had had this moment about 9 weeks ago….lol….

(In case it hasn’t become inherently obvious yet, I didn’t manage to complete nanowrimo back in the end of November. I finished off with a little over 38K words.)

If I were to be really technical, I would have to confess that the actual story component of the word document is probably closer to 48 or 49K, because I have several pages of notes and random scenes that I haven’t figured how to bring into the story yet/ were in the story at one point back in November, but then were taken out during my editing phase (which started on December 1^st).

However, I will use it all eventually, and because of the free-for-all/vomit-terrible-unedited-writing nature of nanowrimo, my friend says I can still count all those words XD. Besides, the judging criteria of nanowrimo is merely the word count, not the coherence of the plot. (And I’m not pathetic enough to merely copy-paste the same words 50,000 times just to say I completed nanowrimo—because I clearly didn’t.)

Yes, I may have failed my first nanowrimo, but I still plowed on, and with my friend’s constant help and encouragement, I have in my laptop my very first novel-length story! (Novel-length, not quality.)

Okay, now for my personal introspection/history….(written mostly for my sake, so feel free to skip all this if it bores you XD)

I still remember when I first heard about nanowrimo. Back in our 2^nd year of high school, my friend had taken part. At the time I first heard about her project, I hadn’t given any thought of participating—a good portion of November had already passed, and plus, I was too busy anyway.

But that’s precisely why nanowrimo exists, isn’t it? “Writing a novel” is on many people’s bucket lists, but it’s always been pushed aside (or at least, in my experience) by the excuse, “Not now, I’m too busy. Maybe later.” With that kind of mindset, we will never write a novel, unless we specifically put it at the top of our priority list. Needless to say, I soon forgot about it.

Fast-forward a few years. The same friend mentioned it to me again on the 26^th of October, and for some reason, one of the things she said really stood out to me: “I figure if I can do it in 10^th grade[,] I can probably do it in college.”

As we talked, I found myself getting excited for it, and quickly wracked my brains for the qualifications for my sudden impulsivity. How bad could 50,000 words be? I had written stories before. I used to write all the time back in the day. As in, 4-6 years ago. I mean, that wasn’t too long ago, right? My longest story was, what—

4,229 words.

Oh.

I could feel myself losing hope. I knew I was a short-story/one-shot writer at heart. After all, my style is to take small daily moments in life (or perhaps the occasional idea) and then spin a long (by my classmates’ standards), full-blown story out of it, embellished with symbolic descriptions and meaningful word choice (with usually a bitter-sweet ending to finish it off). I had taken a creative writing class before, and though our “short fictions” were advised to be no more than 5 pages, Times New Roman 12-size font, and double-spaced, mine somehow became 7-9 pages, 11-sized font, and 1.5 spaced. I planned plots with a clear ending in mind, and as I wrote towards that certain future, I would edit like crazy, reading and rereading my work over a dozen times to catch the mistakes, to improve the word choice, to find some way to make every single sentence symbolic or at least useful somehow—after all, the story was too long for class and I would have to cut out unnecessary sentences if they couldn’t serve some deeper hidden meaning—but that was my style. I wrote short one-shots that were more edited than written, too long for class but not impossible for me to obsessively change, correct, and attempt to make “perfect.” (At least, until I gave up, which admittedly also happened.)

I was not a novel-writer, much less a ‘speed’ one.

Nonetheless, I contemplated on and off for a few days, wondering what I could possibly talk about for 50,000 words. On the day we had our conversation, I had mentioned as a joke writing crack-plot novel featuring Suju, but then because I had absolutely no inspiration for anything, I figured I would probably have better luck with writing out some of the stories I’ve had in my head since my pre-adolescent days. I asked my friend what she would like to see (since we had already decided to keep each other accountable/ motivated by constantly reading each other’s updates throughout the coming month), and she still insisted Suju.

I guess I was writing a Super Junior novel, then...

And then I told myself that no one was ever gonna find out about this. Sure, I had an unhealthy obsession with Suju (seriously, once you give them a chance, you just can’t help but love them to death—just look at my roommate right now XD), but at least I never sat down and tried writing a novel about them…..I think I just took my fandom to the next level.

On October 29, I wrote one paragraph that came to me out of nowhere—it was a scene that I randomly visualized in my head one day, and though I had absolutely no clue where I got it from and what I was going to do with it, I wrote it down anyway.

(That paragraph later on became the excerpt which is posted under the story’s foreword. Yay for random trivia/ facts!)

So two days before nanowrimo was supposed to start, all I had planned for this was a random paragraph that had absolutely no context for anything. Not the most ideal beginning, especially for someone like me.

Due to my nature, I’m a really slow brainstormer, thinker, and typer. It’s really annoying, actually. (Going back to what I said about being an obsessive editor/one-shot writer…) By the time November 1^st rolled around, I only had an inkling of what I wanted to write, but at that point, there was no time to think anymore.

Nanowrimo had officially started.

Write, write, write! According to calculations, participants would have to average 1,667 words a day in order to make the deadline on time. In other words, we’re looking at about 3.5 pages of single-spaced, normal margined, Times New Roman size 12-font. Every. Single. Day.

Write. Don’t worry about how bad your writing is. Just write. Save the editing for December. Don’t get caught up with trying to make your writing perfect, because otherwise you will never finish.

Just write.

Vomit those plot-bunnies, type out those words, do whatever it is you have to in order to achieve that daily coveted quota of 1,667 words.

Write.

[…]

I tried, I really did. I was actually ahead of schedule for the first week, but then once midterms kicked in and I hit my first writer’s block, things went downhill from there. Still, I plowed on, never officially giving up until the minute I realized I had no hope anymore.

Word Count as of December 1: 38,393.

So then what happened after that? On December 1, I was finally freed from the insane rush that was nanowrimo 2011, and could finally go back to living a life again. (Hah, just kidding, I didn’t really have one anyway) For the next few weeks, I focused hard on my studies, finished off my semester strong, and refused to think about editing that massive 70+ page story until Christmas break.

But then my OCD inner editor kicked in again, and starting from the very beginning of the story, I began to make my edits—because now I actually can.

(Around this time, my friend and I discovered AFF, where we found that we weren’t the only people who have written/wanted to write fiction featuring/centered on Super Junior. I did feel better about myself XD)

But writing aside, what did I get out of that frantic month of plot-bunny vomiting? I mean, I didn’t succeed, so in some senses I had nothing to boast about. And even if I did, there wouldn’t have been any tangible reward to hold in my hands. Some could even look at the project as a huge waste of time—given my usual uninspired state, it would take me anywhere between 2.5-5 hours to come up with 1,667 words or more. During those weeks, I had put off a few other commitments, given up other activities. All to write a terrible novel that wasn’t even finished/ still isn’t, to this day.

I think I gained a lot. I’ve attempted something I didn’t even think I was capable of in the first place, and while I didn’t succeed, given my circumstances and background, I don’t think 38K is that bad for a first-timer. Sure, many people complete all 50K during their first time, but I’m not ashamed to admit I’m not one of them. I just don’t have the ability.

This is not a complaint, but an observation made with hope of future change.

As to be expected of a novel one writes in a month while being a full-time student, most of it was utter BS and doesn’t deserve to be called a literary piece of work. But hidden among the pages and pages of total word-vomit were a few good lines here and there that yes, I was proud of. (Actually, one of the more finer moments of my story came towards the end of the month, which I personally found amusing because I typed it up at like, 3 in the morning.)

During that month, I also got closer to my friend, who was going through the same thing. Almost daily, we would exchange stories, talking and/or writing late into the night in order to meet our daily quotas. We bounced off ideas off each other, read each other’s work, offered feedback, and essentially used this whole project as a chance to bond more. During my moments where I was feeling down or extremely uninspired, she was my loyal reader and supporter (to this day, I wonder how anyone could actually look forward to updates on a story like that, but hey, I wasn’t complaining). She encouraged me to keep trying, and speaking as an author to fellow authors, we all know how much those comments mean to us, right? Her interest and critique kept me from giving up prematurely, especially during the moments when I was so tempted to just drop everything and admit defeat.

Thanks, Kibou-chan XD. You’re the best.

So where am I now?

After the conclusion of nanowrimo, we wondered what we were going to do. Now that we no longer had daily updates to look forward to from each other, it felt (at least to me) like part of the highlights of my evenings was taken away. Luckily, my friend then decided to start a Suju fic of her own, and after encouraging me to continue with my own story, our tradition was kept alive.

Honestly, I was both surprised and very happy when she asked me about the status of the novel towards the end of December. She didn’t treat it as a one-month nanowrimo thing, but genuinely looked forward to my updates. As an amateur novelist and not exactly spectacular writer, I was personally very moved and motivated.

YEAH, READERS. AUTHORS LOVE IT WHEN YOU COMMENT/ SHOW INTEREST ON THEIR STORIES. (provided it’s not spam…)

So starting with the end of December till now, I’ve revived my story and have begun the massive process of editing/ rewriting/ continuing it. Now that there’s no time-crunch to worry about, my pacing has been beyond slow (I mean come on, it’s taken me 9 weeks to come up with the remaining 12K words…).

But that just proves my point, doesn’t it? Left by myself, there’s no way I would have even come close to hitting 50K unless I actively tried. I am just not a fast updater.

So I definitely have no regrets about nanowrimo XD.

On another note, something else that had been bothering me a lot lately was my style. Like I said before, the whole entire novel is in concept a style that I’m not used to, and do not particularly excel in (quite the opposite, I’m sure). Though I’ve already obsessively edited it (particularly the beginning) more times than I’d like to count, I’m still not satisfied with it as a whole. I’ve seen my faults, and perhaps other people can point out another handful that I haven’t even noticed yet.

It’s kind of discouraging. I don’t even have the heart to advertise it or ask for reviews, because honestly, how can I make other people read it when I myself can’t see past all the areas it’s lacking in?

But rather than dwell on its imperfections, I’m trying to accept them. Yes, even after editing, the story and its writing have issues and are weak in probably every single category of literary merit one could choose to name, but that’s just a fact and a testament of my current writing ability. Who knows, perhaps after a few more years, I will have improved enough to revise the novel and bring it up to a standard I deem as more respectable, but until then, there’s no point in moping about what I cannot do now.

The point is, I tried, I’m trying, and I will continue to try. As authors, writing is a continuum for us: There is no ceiling of “perfection” that we can attain; rather, we can only improve ourselves and continue to level up the quality of our writing while simultaneously hoping we don’t backtrack. No one is perfect, most definitely not on their first try, and in all likelihood no one will ever be perfect. The best we can do is to continue writing, producing stories that no one’s ever written before or will ever write again (plagiarism’s illegal, guys), and hope that through the experience, we can grow and mature as authors and inspire the future readers who stumble across our name.

For those reasons, I have continued to work on my nanowrimo story, and though it may not be good enough for the critics yet, hopefully the experience will eventually pave a path for a stronger writing future.

(P.S. After a few weeks of editing and rewriting, I’m happy to say that I have a slightly clearer idea of the story’s plot now XD. For those who read it, I’ve been dropping hints…)

Cheers from a belated nanowrimo “winner”! (I can be a winner in my own eyes, alright? Just let me have this moment XD)

*Nanowrimo = National Novel Writing Month: Simply put, write a story containing 50,000 words from 12:00AM on November 1^st to 11:59PM on November 30^th. Edit if you want, but more importantly, write. And write fast. Haha.

Word count of this document: 2,587.