NaNoWriMoNoGo

Okay, something tells me I'm not going to get this novel finished by the end of the day. I find I write at a pace of about 1000+ words per hour at my best, so it would take me about 37 hours of nonstop writing to actually get to 50000 words, and since there are only 8.5 hours left, I don't think that's going to work.

At least I got a good start on it though, and that's what I was hoping for most. And I'm not going to stop writing it either, I'm just going to work on it at a much more leisurely pace (read: when I feel like it). You can't force creativity, that much I know.

A few things really hampered me from getting this done:

1) Final Fantasy XII, I've spent time playing this game that I should have spent writing.

2) The 2 and a half week stretch that I spent not doing any writing at all. Had I done a reasonable amount during that time I probably could have finished.

3) I'm not willing to sacrifice quality when I write. One of the important things the NaNo people say is that you shouldn't worry if what you are writing is good, just keep writing. I simply can't do that. I do a lot of technical writing and I've trained myself to write at a reasonable level of quality at all times. If I don't like it then I'm not going to write it, and I ended up spending way more time refactoring my novel than I did actually writing new content. It may take longer, but I'll be much happier with the result.

4) I like to practice word economy. What most people need a paragraph to say, I say in one or two sentences. This goes against the whole "write a lot of words" philosophy. I also get right to the point, if a character in a story enters a room I don't need 4 pages telling me what shade of green the plant in the corner is. It's green, be done with it.

Overall, it was an interesting experience. I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't finish, but it was an insane goal to begin with. I will finish it though, it's a great way to hash out the story for the game version :)