This year, I’m doing something different for NaNoWriMo. Instead of writing 50,000 words, I have
decided to devote all the time the would have spent writing
to editing my already-written first novel. 50 hours of editing. That’s probably
what it needs to be reader-worthy.
See, last year I finished writing the content in Chiang Mai,Thailand, and when I ran out of stuff to write, I started writing for my diary
or for other stories. But I don’t want to do that this year.
I started participating in Nano in 2013 while living in
Shimane, Japan. I wrote so that my story would be more than just an idea in my
head. I wrote so that I would know what kind of writer I was. I wanted to test
my skill, my patience, my endurance, and I wanted to see if I could write that
much while holding down a full-time job. Turns out, I can.
I learned a lot about myself in the first year, so in 2014
when I was in Myanmar and Thailand, I did Nano again to confirm what I learned,
and to test my abilities in a more nomadic environment.
This year, I have nothing more to learn about myself as a
writer, and I have no new writing to do. Though I’ve already written some
chapters for my second novel and have a vague idea of the story, I feel I need
the experience of completing one novel
before undertaking another one. The last thing I want is thirty unfinished and
unreadable novels on my desktop. I need
something I can show to people. I need something complete. I need to experience
the entire process of novel writing, from initial idea to final edits.
At this time, my skill level is incomplete. I know how to
conjure up ideas and convert them into stories. I know how to describe,
embellish, and elaborate on my ideas. I know how to weave them into a
compelling sequence that surprises and enticed a reader. I know how to tweak
the stories and structure and characters to help them reach their potential, to
bring out their truest selves. But I don’t yet know, or haven’t
experienced, the final editing and structuring that must occur before a story
is actually readable.
I know from my meticulous record-keeping of the last two
years, that I write about 1,000 words per hour on average. This means I will
need to spend 50 hours this next month editing my 120,000-word novel. I have no
idea how much text I can edit in one hour. If the work doesn’t need a lot of changes,
I suppose I can cover quite a lot of text, but then there are those paragraphs
that command a full hour of attention and focus, which is sometimes what it
takes to get them just right. For that reason, I won’t be tracking how many
words I edit per hour, and my only goal is to finish editing the entire novel.
This is a different goal than merely
writing 50,000 words. 50,000 words is measurable. But whether or not my novel is “complete” is purely subjective. Only I will know when I'm satisfied. So, I’ve committed at least 50 hours this next month to editing, but I have no idea whether that
time amount is too much or not enough. This is the part of the process in which
I still have a lot to learn.
Here goes…
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