So You Finished NaNo – A Short Guide to What Happens Next

It’s December 1st once again, so that means a whole lot of people have a brand-new book sitting on their harddrives (and hopefully backed up somewhere). Congratulations, that’s one hell of an achievement! Even if you didn’t quite finish NaNo, you did super well, and I’m proud of you.

You may want to be sitting down for this next part, though.

Ready?

You’re not finished.

Yeah, look, I know, okay? You just wrote 50,000 words! That’s so many! You should be able to take the rest of your life off after that. You can, if you want. I can’t stop you. But you won’t really be finished with your book.

But Cecil,  I wrote ‘the end’, isn’t that enough?

Maybe it is! And it’s fine if that’s all you want. It is 100% okay to sit on your book forever now. If you want a finished book, though, there are more steps ahead. Here they are, in brief:

Reward Yourself

You wrote 50,000 words. In a month! I can’t stress enough how awesome that is, and you have definitely earned a reward. This is also a self-care thing. Writing does not bring instant rewards itself, and keeping your own spirits up is really important. It’s easy to get sucked into the idea that you haven’t done anything if you don’t get external rewards right away, and that’s just not true. So whether it’s a chocolate bar, a new gadget, or a night on the town, do something nice for yourself to celebrate. Most people won’t write 50,000 words in their lifetime.

Take a Week Off

Seriously, take a break. Do something else with all the extra time you managed to dig out of your days during November. That’s truly free time now, so make the most of it. Let your novel percolate in the back of your mind for at least a week. I guarantee that by the time the week’s over, you’ll have something to add to it (feel free to take notes about that, to save you from forgetting your perfect solution to the huge plot hole you left in chapter three).

Revise, Rewrite, Repeat

Probably twice. A ‘rewrite’ doesn’t have to be a huge undertaking where you individually re-commit every word to the page, but let’s be honest here: a NaNo novel is by nature rushed. It’s going to need some work. Don’t be afraid to do that! The whole point of a first draft is to give yourself something to work on. You’ve got the skeleton worked out and there’s probably some straight-up genius stuff in there. Go find it! And throw out or polish up anything that’s not meant to be there.

I’m afraid you’re still not finished, but this is where the process gets hazy. Once you’ve got a final draft you’re happy with, you can do basically whatever you want with the book. Shop it to agents or publishers. Start planning to self-publish. Print it out and make it into a ton of paper hats and distribute them to strangers.

Whatever you choose to do with your book now, I am so proud of you! Most people will never write a book, and a significant percentage of them will always mean to one day. You actually did it. That’s huge. You’re great.

So, off you go. Celebrate your victory, take a break, and then get the hell back to work.

Oh, but before you go: tell me about your novel! What did you write, how many words did you get, which part are you most proud of, which part are you dreading getting back to? Tell uncle Cecil everything *chinhands*