Get to Know Me: Words Words Words

Hey there, and welcome to another personal post where I talk about stuff that I do outside of blogging. Today is all about what I will be doing for the rest of November. I think the word 'November' is already a clue for many of you - I'm doing NaNoWriMo again. That's why I've been absent for the past half week - I've been preparing, and I wanted to start NaNo with 15k words already written on my project. I only managed 14,300-something because I spontaneously went to a Halloween event on Friday, but I caught up yesterday. It was a great first day - I wrote over 3,000 words even though I only started around 6pm.

I did my first NaNo in 2011 with a reduced goal of 30k instead of 50k. I thought I was writing a short story to warm up. Ahem. Yeah, turned out it was the first book in what I guess will at some point be a trilogy. I wrote 66k in November, and another 40k until the end of January, when I finished the novel plus a novella set in the same world. For all of that November, I felt like I was floating. Writing made me so ridiculously happy and I felt like I was part of something big and wonderful.

I was busy in 2012 though and never really got around to revising that novel. I know that there are a lot of things that need fixing. So when I wanted to write the sequel in NaNo 2012, it didn't work out. I wasn't fully committed and didn't have the time, so NaNo 2012 was a fail. Last year I was super busy with my MA thesis, so I didn't even try.

This year though. This year I am so motivated! I felt listless these past few months but lately I suddenly have so much energy and I feel stoked about writing and my project :D I feel like this year, I can do it again. I have a brand new story with me, with characters that I love and that surprise me. I'm so excited to go on this journey with them and figure out what happens! My goal is for this novel to be between 70 to 85k, and I'd like it to be a standalone. I don't know if I can wrap everything up that quickly though because that would mean I've got almost 25% written already and I feel like I'm nowhere yet. But we'll see. This time around, I'm not planning on abandoning the story once the fun part (the draft writing) is over. If in any way possible, I want it to have a beautiful cover and see the light of day.

Is anyone else doing NaNoWriMo this year or has attempted it in the past? What is your experience? Does it work for you? Is it too much pressure? Let me know in the comments :)