Success Through Failing!


So, I’m not going to make it to 50,000 words on my novel this month. I got to about 30,000 words and realized that I was almost done with the story. When I try to force myself to speed through a novel, I really speed through a novel. My draft has almost no scenic detail, and is mostly exposition-heavy dialogue. At one point, I realized that I needed another character and just added him in like he’d been there all along.

So, I’ll have to fix all that.

But then, the point isn’t for it to be polished and lovely.

I did learn a lot. First off, National Novel Writing is just not something that really works with my writing style, which isn’t great. I also learned that it wasn’t too hard to make more time to write, which is good. And I learned a lot about the story that I want to tell, and I did get 30,000 words on paper. At least some of those are worth keeping, so that’s all really good.

My real goal for the month was to get myself motivated to work on the novel, and I think I accomplished that. I still have a lot of work to do, but that would be true even if I had succeeded in my word count goal.


About Jamie

Jamie Lackey lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and their cats. She has over 160 short fiction credits, and has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Escape Pod. She has a novella and two short story collections available from Air and Nothingness Press. In addition to writing, she spends her time reading, playing tabletop RPGs, baking, and hiking. You can find her online at www.jamielackey.com.

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