NaNoWriMo, the Hangover

NaNoWriMo ("National November Writing Month," Mom) ruled me for thirty days. I took my first, slightly revised draft and changed half of it into a second draft. This is more revising I've done since college term papers. Yes, even more than my when at my old reporting jobs.

In the end, I revised 75,000 words in my WIP ("Work in Progress," Mom) during the month of November. But I did so much than just that.

1. I changed the tense from past to present, which was to be an experiment to see if it works better. It does.
2. I fleshed out my antagonist so much that she feels less stereotypical
3. I have even more confidence in this story than a month ago
4. I gave my supporting characters more depth
5. I have memorized the Piano Guys music as that is all I listened to.
6. I've been humbled but in a good way about my MS ("Manuscript," Mom)
7. I still have my climax and end to revise, in other words, the tougher stuff

Ideally, I want 90,000-80,000 words for this book and I'm a long way off. It's going to mean losing some scenes and maybe some characters I've grown to love. I'm going to send it out to the growing list of Beta readers/CP ("Critique partners," Mom) and hopefully get great  and useful feedback. I may start entering some Twitter contests that I've been watching like a hawk since I joined.


But after this November, I'm really looking forward to it.