I was introduced to NaNoWriMo in 2011. For those of you who don’t know what that is, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. It takes place each November and is a challenge to write a 50k novel within a month. The project I choose for this very first NaNoWriMo was “Lightning“. It was based on a dream that I’d had in University which I had recorded in hopes of returning to it. NaNoWriMo gave me the perfect opportunity to pull out that idea and really give it the attention it deserved.

Unfortunately, I failed that first NaNoWriMo and only managed to write 38k. It was disappointing to fail, but still, 38k is not bad for one month! So now I had this novel started, and I continued to add a bit to it here and there, but I never really got it finished. So on the shelf it sat, about 75% complete and begging for those final scenes. Other projects caught my attention and off I ran, creating my Chaotic Galaxies Series and exploring other Horror projects.

In 2019, I sat down to write my yearly goals for WriYe and created “The Big 5“, a list of all those wonderful novels sitting on the shelf which deserved to be finished. There, on the shelf was “Lightning” and I was determined to see it through to the end. So February arrived and my goal was to reread and edit what I had written so far. I was so excited to finally give “Lightning” the attention it longed for!

Editing is not my favourite part of writing, I can assure you. So, those first few days of getting back into the mindset of editing, was not easy. The starting of the novel was familiar and brought me back in with those characters right away. There was a lot of expanding required, which helped me get used to the characters again. In the center of the novel I found myself in scenes that were only hazy memories, which came more clear as I fine tuned them. I created character bios that were sadly lacking, I rounded out some of the characters and added depth to others as I neared the end of editing.

Then, there I was! At the end of what I’d previously written, staring at the cursor which blinked expectantly for new, fresh words to be added.

Those first few words that I added were harder than I expected. I thought that once I hit the point where I was adding new words that they would flow easily. That the ending of the novel would just write itself! But it did not, and I struggled with those first new scenes, surprised by how hard it was. So I took a couple days, toying around with what was to come next. I wrote myself a list of things I knew for sure, like ‘what was really happening’ and ‘what the ending is supposed to be’. After that list, I found myself playing with ‘what needs to happen for that ending to make sense,’ which gave me a whole new list of events. A list of questions came out of my planning next, ‘does this person die?’, ‘How does the main character get that final bit of information needed to conquer her adversary?’.

Out of all these lists, I found the remaining plot! It took a little reorganizing, a little more ‘what if,’ planning, but there it was! Finally, the writing became easier! It felt less like I was lost and wandering; it felt like I was now working towards something! The end was in sight and I was now racing towards it with those glorious, new words!

It was weird to be back in my 201 1 head space. I was surprised by how sparse the novel was (given my tendency to be wordy) and how certain words kept jumping out. (I have no idea why I used ‘stated’ so often) Thankfully, I was also pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t awful! That I wasn’t having to rewrite everything. I’m really glad that I’m taking the time to go back and finish the novel and I really look forward to finally have that ending down on ‘paper’!

I’ll let you know how it turns out!