More Recap - Thoughts one day after the 2004 finish

Here is what YT wrote on December 1, the day after the end of NaNoWriMo.

Oy. Writing partners like Ms. Tiff plug away at a steady pace and finish early. YT lets the old, bad habits back out and goes for the sprint at the end. Here are some thoughts not quite 24 hours after passing the magic 50,000 word threshold.

Immediate conclusions:

1. Write every day. Seriously. The steady pace of the first two weeks, if kept up, would have surely led to a better novel. The sprint at the end led to much sloppiness.
   
2. A little planning beats no planning at all. Spending five or ten minutes sketching out notes for a scene made writing it so much easier, time after time. Even a few lines on a 3x5 card helps keep up forward momentum during the writing session.
   
3. Never write a sex scene on deadline. This requires a delicate touch, lest the writing get too mechanical or too elliptical. Writing about sex at breakneck speed just washes away all imagination in a torrent of words.

On 188 printed pages, the draft as a whole reads like... a rush draft. Or as one WriMo put it, a thick pile of sludge. YT is resisting the temptation to edit Right Now. The shape of the novel will still be there in a couple of weeks. On the Day After WriMo, catching up on sleep is sooo much a better choice.

Later, YT rambled on, saying along the way:

On the other hand, there's a draft of about two thirds of a novel sitting in an inch-thick pile over on the table. That's about two thirds of a novel more than YT had in hand a month ago.


And with those observations, we leave memories of 2004 behind.