I ended up taking a little break from writing after NaNoWriMo this year. It wasn’t really planned, it just happened.
NaNoWriMo was a success for me again this year in that I wrote almost every day in November and managed to type just over 50,000 words in the process. I didn’t really like my story, though. I think the problem was I wrote it in the first person as a 15-year-old high school student. There is not enough money in the world to make me want to go back to high school again, so that likely tainted my perception of the experience. I think the general story has potential, but there were times when I just struggled with what to do with some of the characters. After all, it has been many moons since I was in high school and the world has changed so much in that time. I think I will revisit it again some day but rewrite it with the main characters as adults. We’ll see.
I also did not work on editing my story from NaNoWriMo 2015. I did find it crossing my mind. A lot. I miss the characters. I can relate to them better, probably because there is a lot of me in the main character. Does that make me narcissistic? Maybe. No more than any other writer who puts bits of themselves into their characters, though. I just grabbed my printed copy with notes and put it on my desk so I can get back to this.
This year I plan to write a book with one of my sisters (the other will have input, too, I’m sure). I don’t know if it will be a NaNoWriMo thing or if it will just be something I try to work on. This will be more of a planned effort than a pantsed one, so that will be different for me. Collaborating on a story will be quite different, too.
I also want to give short stories and poetry a whirl. Yes, I am getting all sorts of crazy this year.
Looking back over the last month or so, I think taking a break from writing was good for me. Absence has definitely made the heart grow fonder. I feel a lot more energized about putting pen to paper and fingers to keyboard and setting free the words that are running around like toddlers on sugar highs in my head.