2010 NaNoWriMo Reflection

I didn't finish.  I didn't "win" this year.  Not by a long shot.  I got to about 12,000 words and that was as good as I could do.

I can think of a number of reasons that I failed this year.  I had an idea for a story that was already derivative - it was an adaptation of someone else's setting.  Not really fanfic, but derivative enough that I couldn't send it off to publishers in the form it was taking.

It's also possible that I'm simply not a novelist, not a long-form storyteller.  I don't doubt that I'm a storyteller, I just seem to have trouble with novel-length stories.  When I won a few years ago, it was with a story that I thought was pretty cool.  I put this huge amount of November work into it, but then when NaNo was done, I dropped it entirely.  I didn't have the motivation to go back and edit the story.

Is that I'm not a novel writer, or is it that I haven't found the right novel to write?  I don't have any question about whether I am a writer - I write lots of things, not just this blog, and I do a pretty good job of it.  I just wonder whether novels are my thing; will ever be my thing.  I love reading them - there's that at least.

Next year, I'll try it again.  We'll see.  Might just be a matter of a lot of attempts.

Big, big congratulations to everyone who won this year.  See you all next year when I start again with page 1, word 1.