Completing NaNoWriMo and Writathon in 2021

I recently completed both the NaNoWriMo challenge and the Writathon challenge, and I feel both motivated, proud, and immensely satisfied and thankful to have gotten the chance to give these two challenges a go. 

Back in October, I learned that the RR Writathon challenge would be taking place from October 31 to December 5. Because it overlapped with NaNoWriMo (which takes place during November), and because I had had as part of my goals for the year to complete a couple of large projects that I haven't been able to work on at all in 2021, I was interested in giving both challenges a try. 

I've known of NaNo for a long time, but have never had the chance to try it (November, for some reason, has been a notoriously busy month for me). This November, however, I decided to put my foot down and seriously (though unofficially) participate in the challenge.  

I also decided that I would use the same project for both of them. Since they overlapped, it was easier that way. I chose to work on a solarpunk murder mystery novel, called Murder in Heliopolis, which I started brainstorming for almost as soon as I realized I was really going to do this. It helped, somewhat, that I was also not in the best of health for half of October, and had lots of time to think about what I wanted to do. I started plotting, and I was still working on the plot when the Writathon challenge started. 

Plotting definitely helped me keep up my writing pace. I'd already tried plotting a story out chapter by chapter before with Marie/Elise, and it had worked so well with that book (the draft is not complete and slated for a revision) that I decided I would do the same for Murder in Heliopolis. It certainly did not let me down, and though I've deviated a bit from the original plotting that I set out for the book, having that guidance made it a lot easier to keep writing, even when I just wasn't motivated to continue. All of the hard work was done for me - I knew where the story was going and what I needed to write. All I had to do from there was to just turn my plot points into chapters.

I'm happy to say that I was able to complete NaNo on November 28, reaching the 50,000 word count goal on that day. 

After that, I was able to complete Writathon on December 3, when I reached the 55,555 word count goal. 

Currently, Murder in Heliopolis stands at 59,284 words published over on RR - that's 24 chapters. If you'd like to read it, you can do so here. (Yep - completely free! I'm releasing this draft as a serialized fiction, so I do hope you enjoy it!)

I'm expecting to write about 4 or so more chapters before the first draft is complete. As of my writing this, there are only 1.5 days left to go on the Writathon challenge, so I'm not sure I'll make it by the end of the challenge itself, like I'd been hoping to do previously.

Completing a challenge like Nano is a pretty big feat, and I was fortunate enough to have it overlap with Writathon so that I could complete them both! I'm looking forward to finishing Murder in Heliopolis (hopefully before the end of the year, though I make no promises).