You finished. You worked on it. The hours have passed...
End of the 3 Day Novel contest, Labour Day Weekend 2022
What to say… Congratulations, you did it! or You endured! You created! Maybe you spent most hours staring at the screen.
Maybe life blew up—as it can—and the whole thing took some unforeseen turn. Maybe life handed you something to write about for the coming 24 months instead.
Maybe you learned something about your writing self. About whoever shares your home. That your cat is a real source of inspiration. That you need to make better snacks. That you need a space in which to talk to yourself—aloud.
Maybe you completed a short novel, a novella. Or a long short story.
Whatever you have done, you’ve taken 72 hours, and you have spent them thinking and living as a writer thinks and lives.
And that, writers, is something.
Now rest. Rest a bit longer than you think you need to.
Peace—
Alison
Thank you so much for your encouragement and support and inspiration, Alison.
I signed up for the 3-day novel contest at the last minute, the day before. I had realistic expectations (thanks to your articles) and was in it just for fun as well as to find out if I could keep a story going for that long.
I loved my characters so much! Today, I feel a little sad that I'm not writing new adventures for them. Isn't that funny?
I submitted the finished manuscript yesterday but they wrote back to let me know there are actually a couple of days allowed for editing. Do I want to edit? I'm not sure. I feel like I was with some wonderful people in an interesting place (my story was mostly set on a property in Powell River) and now I'm on the (psychological) plane home. Maybe after a couple of hours of thinking about other things, though, I will return to it. It's very kind of them anyway.
I didn't push myself too hard except to keep at it when otherwise I might have gone off to read a book or have a bath or do something with my family. I didn't stay up all night, did take time to do things with my kids in the evening and also I started each day with a short walk. I didn't spend any time cooking, my family did that for me, so I was able to just think about my characters and what was going on in their lives. That was such a treat! To be able to immerse myself in their lives and the questions that they were flinging at the universe, not to mention the action on the ground!!! It was a dream.
I could have written a few thousand words more but my story didn't need it. I wrapped it up at about 27,000 words. Not enough to say it's a novel but I'm calling it a novel anyway. Has a beginning, a middle and an end, plus a cat. I enjoyed working on it. In fact, I loved working on it. So in that way I think I got more out of the competition than I could have expected.
The main issue I ran into as a writer was that sometimes my brain just filled with sludge. The story was in there but I was a little too written out to get the words on the page. I had that problem at the end of each day and I wrapped up early the third day because of it. I'm sure the sludge shows in the story! But that's okay because I took it as a sign that I was putting in my best effort. If you go for a long hike, your legs might feel that way too. It's normal!
Thank you for the suggestion, Alison! It was your substack that enabled me to have this opportunity.
Well said. After past 3-Day efforts, I usually got completely away from the story and did something outside.