Faerie Eye

introvert with me

Wednesday, December 2, 2020

NaNoWriMo 2020 || Did I reach my 10,000 word goal?


My very first NaNoWriMo is over, guys! I actually followed through and participated, go me :) Just that in itself is worthy of patting myself on the back, I feel. Though being stuck at home definitely helped! I don't know if I would have bothered otherwise. 

So how'd I do?

If you read this post from a month ago, you know that I set a personal word goal of 10,000 instead of the normal 50,000 words. Annnnnnd...

I did it!!! My total word count at the end was: 10,799!!!!


The first part of the story flowed really quickly, I was able to get 4000 words in the first THREE DAYS. I was very excited about my progress! But after that, it was a struggle, and I wasn't sure if I was going to make it before the month ended. I kept going back to chapters I wrote and just adding a little bit more detail here and there in a way to avoid trying to progress the story forward. I got so stuck on what his mission was or who the opposing groups would be!

Things I noticed afterward:

I don't describe anyone in depth. Like, there is no eye or hair color at all. Or any facial features really. Which doesn't surprise me that much since I do have a little bit of facial blindness, so that shows me how little I think of those things. Maybe I should think about my cats when I want to describe people because I'm always complimenting them.

MiSu: oh look at your adorable bottom lip, how pink it is! And that little freckle!
Kazu: mister with your beautiful blue eyes and lovely wide nose, how'd you get so handsome!
Toki: who has the prettiest eyelashes? so blond and long, you look like a movie star!
Momo: little one, so silent like a ninja with those anime eyes and cute little paws!
Soya: aw, sitting so pretty like a little geisha with your arms like that!

Okay, with Soya I don't compliment her looks that much. Mostly I tell her she is the crankiest goat that ever cranked because her yelling is not cute. And she is usually dirty, full of dead grass and dirt from rolling around outside like a pig.

How did this turn into me talking about my cats? My story has no cats in it. Maybe I should add one... So I'm sure if I went back and added descriptions of what these people actually LOOK like I could pad the story a bit more.

What I do talk about a lot, is the one character OUTFITS. I even copied and pasted some dresses I found and put the images in the story so I could reference them.

All in all, I enjoyed the little challenge I set for myself, and I'm so proud that I actually got to (over!) 10,000 words! This is the LONGEST story I've written by a long shot, I don't think any of my stuff in the past has gone past 500 words. I've mostly only written super-short stories. The last story I wrote I think I was age 19, so this was also a challenge flexing my fiction writing muscles. I write a lot for my blog but that is very different than making stuff up.

I think I might participate again next year, with the same word goal. I don't think I will be able to continue this story any further than I've taken it, so it will just have to sit where it is for now.

Did any of you participate? Or just lurk? I did my share of lurking, I still haven't participated in the forums.