I have to start this post by yelling very loudly “I DID IT!” I reached 50,000 words on the 30th November (today) at 4.10pm Australian time. I’d actually fallen behind my word goal the last few days, meaning I had to write around 2,100 words today to hit 50k. It was very exciting putting my 50,000 words into the NaNoWriMo word count evaluator and receiving my winner’s certificate. Thank-you so much to everyone who cheered me on and supported me throughout the month of November. And in case you don’t believe me, here’s my NaNoWriMo page (complete with my final word count).
Now onto the helpful websites and blog posts for the month of November. There aren’t quite as many as usual, since I’ve been writing more than scouting for sites, but there were a few good ones. I’ve even included a few at the end for those finishing up NaNoWriMo and in need of a laugh.
Resource Roundup – NaNoWriMo Edition
The bluestocking blog did a great round up of helpful and insightful posts relating to NaNoWriMo earlier in the month, but there are quite a few helpful writing links in there worth checking out even though NaNo is now over.
Brooke Johnson, self-proclaimed panster, outlines how she still does some plotting when she writes.
7 Things Your Characters Do Too Much
I know I’m guilty of a couple of these!
The Five Elements of a Novel Query
The first post in a blog series on writing novel queries, this post outlines the five elements that should be included in your query, and follows up with some examples.
5 Ways to Make Your Novel Helplessly Addictive
Five things you should be including on every page of your book to ensure your reader keeps on reading.
6 and 1/2 Ways to Impress an Agent
Literary agent Tina Wexler outlines six and a half ways to impress an agent.
And now for the fun stuff (because I know after writing 50k words in a month I need some relief)…
Anyone who is an official NaNoWriMo participant would have got this in their inbox during November, but if you’re not an official participant or you never got around to opening the e-mail you should read this. Quite funny.
So You’ve Discovered That You’re A Fictional Character
Humourously outlines all those amateur mistakes we writers make when we first start writing by speaking with a fictional character who is the result of bad writing. (I’m sure a few of our NaNoWriMo characters are still in this stage until we go back and start editing.)
Weren’t we all that naive when we first started out, before we started reading agent blogs and realising there is more to writing than just slapping words on a page? I got a good giggle from this video.
A big congratulations to everyone who particpated in NaNoWriMo this month, whether you reached 50,000 words or not.
