Current location:	Melbourne Australia
Current mood:	accomplished

The End (of NaNoWriMo 2007)
"So you may have noticed that I've been a bit offline..."

This is something I say every few weeks, or maybe months or so. A tired mantra, perhaps, but...well, at least it's honest?

I made a few priority checks and realised that my likely one-and-only shot at NaNo was going down the tubes thanks to the family drama I had in the middle of the month, which pretty much stranded me for a week. Over the last week, therefore, I've been particularly selfish as well as masochistic, and bumped this to the fore.

So much for the careful pacing. Fortunately, I have this to show for it: and

My word-count banner in my profile page is now purple and all that jazz. It's over.

Additionally, I went and stuck it to the man...I mean, I went into the challenge with a pre-existing work 30,000 words in the writing and I still won. Who says NaNo is all about anything goes!?

Apart from meeting deadlines, I've come to appreciate just how isolating writing can be. I've been shamefully neglectful of friends and family, and as soon as I've recovered will be present once more in more-or-less my usual moderately non-committal capacity :P Moreover, I've really been surprised at the direction and the sheer amount of expansion that Anthropometry (working title for my novel) took. It originally started as a vague idea for a roleplay, and an experimental scene. Then I thought to myself 'I wonder what the world behind this is,' and sought to write some background notes, and it eventually grew...into this. I think my estimate of 200,000 words for the complete work might actually be exceeded by half that again, which is somewhat frightening, but I suppose expected given the scope.

At any rate, I will certainly continue to write it. NaNo, for me, was a motivational tool to boost productivity as well as set myself a challenge, and this being done, the larger challenge of actually finishing the story itself remains.

Also, I've met, through this blatant exercise in peer-pressure, people with whom I share creative interests. Done in the right spirit, NaNo can also be an enriching social venture. As far as NaNo is concerned, I came in not thinking about this at all, and came out thinking maybe this was the most valuable aspect of it all.

Amazing, to consider the sharing that can come from selfishness.



Oh look! Orlestat's happy for me! Actually...no. He's just being smug again, arrogant bastard >.>