Contrary to appearances, I didn't fail to learn anything from the social-life-apocalypse that was NaNoWriMo 2010. Even if the very fact that I started NaNoWriMay would seem to point to this conclusion.
As well as learning just how futile and anticlimactic a rushed first draft can be - because you know you'll have to rewrite pretty much the entire thing before you even think of letting anyone near it - I was also reminded of just how long 50,000 words is. In case you're suffering similar ambiguity, I'll tell you: it is very long.
That's why, as soon as I realised this new thing I'm writing was at best a 20,000 word short novel (or 'novella,' if you want to sound pretentious - says the guy who describes himself in the URL of his website as a 'freelance flaneur'), I decided to leave it at that. There's no way it would've survived the padding process to 50,000 words intact.
Here it is.
What's next?
So now I have the rushed first draft of a 20,019 word short novel that no one's allowed near, what about the 29,981 words I have left to play with before the month is up?
What about them? I'm already spending too much time on the computer as it is, without giving myself more pointless deadlines. I've even cut down on blogging (special thanks to Blogger there, for screwing up for several days and deleting all the changes I made to blogs during that time - it's not like internet access is expensive on this island or anything).
I'll continue writing my Antarctic mining steampunk Victoriana alternative history hollow earth sci-fi adventure, which I like and which easily has 20,000 words in it, but I'll write it when I damn well feel like it. Which probably means it'll never get done. But never mind, there's always November.
Novel progress: 20,019 words (100%, alright?)
