So yesterday as I reached around 46,000+ words, I surprisingly typed:
THE END
And I still had at least 4000 words to write so as to reach the final 50,000 word goal for NaNoWriMo.
It’s the very first time that this is happening to me. A shortage of words instead of an overflow. What happened?
Anyone is in the same situation?
For me, I believe that I was too much in a hurry to finish the novel.
Last year, for NaNo, I had an awesome idea, and although I reached the 50k boundary, I never really finished the novel. Never typed ‘THE END’ and I haven’t yet revised it. (But since it’s still an awesome idea to me, I surely will one day!) This year, I wanted to get more serious about my writing and was eager to end the novel. I rushed to the end. And that’s why I finished too early.
So what do I do now?
Well, I’m going to keep on writing of course!
???
What I mean, is that, although my novel has reached its end, there’s still much more to tell, to add in between the lines. In fact, I had a plan, a detailed plot of the whole story in my writing copybook, and when I looked back at it after days of writing, I realised that I missed many little scenes and details that are indeed important to the novel!
How could I have missed them? Too eager to end… *sigh*
And I didn’t include the prologue in my wordcount because I wrote that before NaNo. So it means that there’s more to add, i.e. I can write another prologue, a second draft, let’s say.
Just look out for little things like this… and your wordcount will climb!
A writer’s imagination is unlimited after all. Keep on finding twists to put into your story. Keep on running for the NaNo finishing line!
Last thing:
“I always end up feeling like I need to write the end to write the beginning. And I don’t think it only applies to writing a novel.”
I posted this on An Evil Nymph’s Blog Facebook page and I wanted to put it here too in case some of you didn’t see it. And these words, I mean them. Someday I’d like to try writing the end of a story before the beginning, and from that, I’ll slowly build up the plot until page one. Because it is when I reached THE END that I finally understood all of my characters and the whole story and all… and then I looked back at the beginning… and I realised that I have a lot of editing to do.
Having a clear image of the end in mind helps in any domain. It’s called having specific goals. And from these, we can draw specific paths to go towards them. It’s like having a map. Isn’t it easier to reach your destination then?
What are your thoughts on all of this?
An Evil Nymph.
PS: Good luck one last time to all the participants of NaNoWriMo – the end is near! Don’t stop until Saturday at 00.00! Even though you’re far from reaching 50k words, don’t stop. Keep running. At least you’ve done it. And in the end we’ll all realise that we have more words written than what we had in October. 🙂 Thus we all come out of November as winners! Yeah!!!
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An Evil Nymph's Blog 
As you say just keep adding, if theres people in it add extras.
Indeed! 🙂
Congrats.
Thanks!
Well done, because you will do it, add footnotes. i am currently there now with my final chapter to add takes just over the line but will not validate because the story is nearly finished . tomorrow. hopefully.. congrats on your effort.
Thank you! And congrats to you too 🙂
Thank you 😉
Congratulations Daph… Not an easy thing to achieve 50,000 words, or 40,000 for that matter. As you have said though, you’ll probably find 2,000 with further little scenes and details…
Anyway, what does it matter? If the work is good, its good regardless of the count…!
Yes indeed I found it a little harder this year though, but I did it finally 🙂 Hehe of course, now that it’s over I can trim and polish and then the wordcount won’t matter!
Your word count is impressive despite not hitting 50,000 yet, once you start adding extra details and scenes I bet your world count will flourish. I like the line, ‘I always end up feeling like I need to write the end to write the beginning’. Its that paradoxical nature of novels that make them so interesting.
Thanks! Yes and it did 🙂 Indeed!
Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you!
Congratulations! I’ve been planning on a NaNo since the past 3 years but inevitable my finals are always during the entire November month.
Lovely to meet another writer. 🙂
Thanks! It’s the same here: exams fall during October-November period. But somehow for two consecutive years I was able to manage NaNo and getting good results… so 🙂
Wow! I admire your strength and resolve! Perhaps next year might change my schedule a bit!
Still counts, I say. 50,000 is just an arbitrary round number, so if you’re a bit off and still finished your novel, I’d say you won. I know that’s not the official rules stance, but the whole point is to write a novel, and you did. Anyway, congratulations! It’s always a great feeling to get to the end of a story.
You’re right 🙂 Thank you! Indeed!
Just finish the project… I’m sure you can find 4000 words to add to the novel… Then editing kicks in. Congrats! 🙂
Sure I did! 🙂 Thanks!