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Doing a retrospective for NaNo 2020 and NaNo 2021 this year. I intended to do one last year, but then ended up... not, lol. I had to go through my NaNo 2020 output in order to work on NaNo this year, so it's fresh in my mind once again.
This year's NaNo went pretty smoothly, all things considered. I lost almost a week early on due to travel, which made the rest of the month a little exhausting, but I've had much worse situations before (starting halfway through the month, for example?). I didn't at any point doubt that I was going to get to 50,000, and if anything this was one of my better challenges in terms of discipline. No 12k words on the last day here! But I can only continue to dream of a November where I do the actual prescribed word count every single day and don't end up with at least 5k to go on November 30th, heh.
For both NaNos I was working on pretty similar material: the rest of the Orre part of the story, out through the end. Reading back through the work from NaNo 2020 really got me enthused about what's to come. Lots of fun stuff, and I think even most of the scenes that were spontaneous during that last big writing session hold up well. At the end of last year's NaNo I felt as though I'd done a good exploration of what wouldn't work and had driven a couple of the character arcs in exactly the wrong direction. Looking back at it this year, I could see that in a couple places--and there are a couple big scenes that I devoted a fair number of words to that straight-up aren't going to work, so I'll be doing some throwing away. But on the whole I was pretty pleased with how it all shook out, reconsidering it a year later.
One thing that I was rather frustrated but amused by last year was the fact that I managed to go 50k and not mention Absol once. It was like, I see you lurking over there! This is your arc! Get out here and do your thing already! For this year I prioritized getting a couple of Absol scenes in, but I definitely have further to go with that. She's a slippery one for sure.
This year my focus really should have been on proximal chapters in the 50-55 range, but alas, I found myself really digging some of the *very* endgame chapters instead. A lot of this is just uncertainty; the next 10-15 chapters are very difficult in the way that the tournament arc was difficult. There are essentially multiple storylines progressing in parallel, and while it's easy for me to map out what needs to happen in each one, as cause and effect play out strongly to dictate scene order within each thread, it's much harder for me to place those threads correctly relative to each other. They affect each other rather minimally until they start to come together at the end of the arc (which, surprise, guess what section I ended up actually writing part of?), so there's no clear guide about how they progress relative to each other and therefore the timing of scenes on the whole. I don't want to end up in a scenario where oops I dropped this plot thread for a couple chapters, so now I need three scenes of it in a row to catch it up with the others, etc.
By contrast, the final arc of the fic, once everything comes together, is *very* straightforward in terms of progression and contains many of my favorite scenes. I indulged and wrote one of them (indeed the entire chapter it belonged to) at the beginning of NaNo while I was still trying to figure out where I was going with everything, which was fun. There are some parts of it that will need to be reworked, but I like some other elements that I discovered in it, and overall I think it'll serve as a solid starting point for getting to a finished chapter. Wrote another really fun little scene from towards the end of the fic and pushed on into uncharted territory with some of the ending-ish bits that I knew had to exist but hadn't done any writing on whatsoever. Good stuff!
Towards the end of the month, I gained some discipline and circled back towards the earlier parts of the arc and took care of e.g. a couple Absol scenes, made sure I didn't totally neglect her this year. Wrote one really fun and unexpected scenes. And it was pretty gratifying, as I was getting into the last couple days and running out of chapter, to realize that oh shit, what do I even have left to write that I haven't done already? Where I ended up at the end of this year is similar to where I ended up at the end of the last, with a pile of fun scenes that still need to be put in order. Which is good! But especially given the nature of the problem with the proximal part of the fic, wasn't perhaps the most productive use of time. I really would have benefitted from sitting down before NaNo started and trying to put everything I had in order, see where I was still missing scenes, and working to untangle the ~chapters 50-60 range and having a more targeted idea of what I ought to tackle in writing rather than going with my usual "draft whatever." That works pretty well when I just need to race forward really fast, but is less useful when I have a lot of material but am not sure how it all hangs together yet. Alas, my October was pretty crazy this year, and although I did a little organization, I ultimately wasn't very prepared.
For my next fanfic, there will be three main characters we will follow exclusively and that is it. :P
In any case, here were a few fun things that emerged from my NaNos this year and the last:
- Mewtwo doesn't understand picnics
- Mewtwo goes to therapy
- A tyranitar sculptor
- Another raticate because no one can stop me
I have a bit of organizing to do, then, with all this new material! All in all, it was a good couple NaNos. Rereading the output from 2020, in particular, was a great time and really left me excited for the fic and where it's going. There is a lot in here for me to enjoy... Now I just have to do the work of getting it out there for other people to enjoy, too. :P
Next year's NaNo is going to be interesting! I do wonder if it'll be the first one in a long while where I'll be working on something new. We'll have to see... I have a lot of plans for the new year!
("Sun's Chosen" commentary will resume and complete soon! I'm nearly done with Draft 3, and there's only one more after that. Everything gets put on hold for Nano, lol.)
This year's NaNo went pretty smoothly, all things considered. I lost almost a week early on due to travel, which made the rest of the month a little exhausting, but I've had much worse situations before (starting halfway through the month, for example?). I didn't at any point doubt that I was going to get to 50,000, and if anything this was one of my better challenges in terms of discipline. No 12k words on the last day here! But I can only continue to dream of a November where I do the actual prescribed word count every single day and don't end up with at least 5k to go on November 30th, heh.
For both NaNos I was working on pretty similar material: the rest of the Orre part of the story, out through the end. Reading back through the work from NaNo 2020 really got me enthused about what's to come. Lots of fun stuff, and I think even most of the scenes that were spontaneous during that last big writing session hold up well. At the end of last year's NaNo I felt as though I'd done a good exploration of what wouldn't work and had driven a couple of the character arcs in exactly the wrong direction. Looking back at it this year, I could see that in a couple places--and there are a couple big scenes that I devoted a fair number of words to that straight-up aren't going to work, so I'll be doing some throwing away. But on the whole I was pretty pleased with how it all shook out, reconsidering it a year later.
One thing that I was rather frustrated but amused by last year was the fact that I managed to go 50k and not mention Absol once. It was like, I see you lurking over there! This is your arc! Get out here and do your thing already! For this year I prioritized getting a couple of Absol scenes in, but I definitely have further to go with that. She's a slippery one for sure.
This year my focus really should have been on proximal chapters in the 50-55 range, but alas, I found myself really digging some of the *very* endgame chapters instead. A lot of this is just uncertainty; the next 10-15 chapters are very difficult in the way that the tournament arc was difficult. There are essentially multiple storylines progressing in parallel, and while it's easy for me to map out what needs to happen in each one, as cause and effect play out strongly to dictate scene order within each thread, it's much harder for me to place those threads correctly relative to each other. They affect each other rather minimally until they start to come together at the end of the arc (which, surprise, guess what section I ended up actually writing part of?), so there's no clear guide about how they progress relative to each other and therefore the timing of scenes on the whole. I don't want to end up in a scenario where oops I dropped this plot thread for a couple chapters, so now I need three scenes of it in a row to catch it up with the others, etc.
By contrast, the final arc of the fic, once everything comes together, is *very* straightforward in terms of progression and contains many of my favorite scenes. I indulged and wrote one of them (indeed the entire chapter it belonged to) at the beginning of NaNo while I was still trying to figure out where I was going with everything, which was fun. There are some parts of it that will need to be reworked, but I like some other elements that I discovered in it, and overall I think it'll serve as a solid starting point for getting to a finished chapter. Wrote another really fun little scene from towards the end of the fic and pushed on into uncharted territory with some of the ending-ish bits that I knew had to exist but hadn't done any writing on whatsoever. Good stuff!
Towards the end of the month, I gained some discipline and circled back towards the earlier parts of the arc and took care of e.g. a couple Absol scenes, made sure I didn't totally neglect her this year. Wrote one really fun and unexpected scenes. And it was pretty gratifying, as I was getting into the last couple days and running out of chapter, to realize that oh shit, what do I even have left to write that I haven't done already? Where I ended up at the end of this year is similar to where I ended up at the end of the last, with a pile of fun scenes that still need to be put in order. Which is good! But especially given the nature of the problem with the proximal part of the fic, wasn't perhaps the most productive use of time. I really would have benefitted from sitting down before NaNo started and trying to put everything I had in order, see where I was still missing scenes, and working to untangle the ~chapters 50-60 range and having a more targeted idea of what I ought to tackle in writing rather than going with my usual "draft whatever." That works pretty well when I just need to race forward really fast, but is less useful when I have a lot of material but am not sure how it all hangs together yet. Alas, my October was pretty crazy this year, and although I did a little organization, I ultimately wasn't very prepared.
For my next fanfic, there will be three main characters we will follow exclusively and that is it. :P
In any case, here were a few fun things that emerged from my NaNos this year and the last:
- Mewtwo doesn't understand picnics
- Mewtwo goes to therapy
- A tyranitar sculptor
- Another raticate because no one can stop me
I have a bit of organizing to do, then, with all this new material! All in all, it was a good couple NaNos. Rereading the output from 2020, in particular, was a great time and really left me excited for the fic and where it's going. There is a lot in here for me to enjoy... Now I just have to do the work of getting it out there for other people to enjoy, too. :P
Next year's NaNo is going to be interesting! I do wonder if it'll be the first one in a long while where I'll be working on something new. We'll have to see... I have a lot of plans for the new year!
("Sun's Chosen" commentary will resume and complete soon! I'm nearly done with Draft 3, and there's only one more after that. Everything gets put on hold for Nano, lol.)
