After Nanowrimo - downer

I have to say, the Nanowrimo, novel writing month was a huge high... the beginning, the progress, the finishing - all exciting and life changing.

Here I am, at the end of the month, rough draft in hand, feeling a little down. I still feel like writing, but unlike when I was working on my novel, there seem to be good excuses to not write!

I'm hoping that a new novel writing group with spur me on (maybe not a good approach! Ha!) . All I need is something to read to them when we gather, and that will probably work out.

Also - I'm reading and almost done "No Plot? No Problem!" by Chris Baty - a good book for sure. A real preparation manual for Nanowrimo - I wish I'd had it before I'd finished my novel. I will be reading it again before the next novel writing month - likely to happen in June, although I'm sure there will be other writing before then.

A few key items in the book that I found good ideas that I never followed in my month:
1) Outline for a week or so before the novel writing starts (I worked on the fly all the way)
2) keep a "novel ideas" file open at the same time as the novel to put random thoughts
3) Some word processor ideas to mark bits and pieces as being "bad", i.e. transparent etc..

Otherwise, I think I did pretty well - I regret not outlining more, as it left my novel in a sorry state - not publishable without sizeable edits, large sections removed or relocated etc... A jumble of ideas. I like the ideas though - so that is a huge accomplishment. I'm just having trouble going back to it.

Someone did offer to do a novel swap though, and I'm reading "Shark" by atomic_willis, although I'm still days away from a real review.