I had to google “egg cream” and now that I have, I think I may vomit.

And ear candles are candles that you stick in your ear and light on fire. If you have to try them to realize they aren’t for you then well, please try them someplace that is a) combustible, and b) far from me.

I finished the novel, my work however is not 50’000. Does that mean I’m half a winner?:P

Didn’t win, but that doesn’t matter. I have 37k more than I started November with, and definitely enough to shape it up into a right proper novel.

Thanks for this. I was kind of feeling like a failure for only getting 17,000 words done, 16,000 of which I hammered out in the first 10 days. The thought of continuing at that pace until the end of November made me want to self-combust. Not, “I think I might self-combust,” but, “I want to self-combust.” So I said screw it. It did motivate me to get started, though, which I found to be the hardest part. And I’ve been bitten. Big time. A big, gaping bite-hole that only closes up while I’m writing. I’ve just enrolled to get my BA in English and I’m still writing and reading about writing. I love it.

I’m about 5,000 words off my target. I was going to try and catch up, but then I bought Double Dead. Which ate a full day and is still making me dance around in the awesome. (I’m writing an article about it for http://www.ogeeku.com!)

Some people can write 5,000 words in a day. I can, too. But not with an eleven month old. So, it’s a good bet I’m going to lose.

But you know what? This is the longest stretch of words on one story I’ve ever written. I’ve known since I was a small child that I wanted to be a novelist. But I had that ‘I’m not good enough’ mentality for just as long. NaNo somehow broke that for me. I have never in my life been so excited about writing something in my life. Which, I’m excited about writing a lot (between the times I’m cursing at it for not doing my bidding), so that really says a lot.

This is a test-run for me. I’m one of those NaNo rebels. I’m writing fanfiction for a contest that’s due in May. But writing this tells me that YES, I want to start on the novel that has been in my head for nine years, and YES, I can actually freaking write it. And maybe write it pretty damn well. That’s a feeling that means a hell of a lot more than a printable banner. (Though if I somehow manage to write 5K in the remaining day, I’ll certainly jump for joy.)

Oh, and I discovered you via a NaNoWriMo hash tag on Twitter, so… win/win, in my book. (AKA WRITE MORE NOVELS OMG)

Gah, excuse the typos. I’m tired, and both NaNo and Double Dead have obliterated my brain.

I’ve never actually tried to do NaNo before this year. Last year I looked at the calendar and thought ‘maybe I’ll try NaNo this year’ and tried to think of a story. After a week of nothing, I figured it was best left for 2011.

This year, however, I started thinking on story and characters long before November. I still had nothing really concrete when NaNo started this year, so I found myself just writing scenes that occurred to me while trying to figure out this story. Soon I found myself with two different stories, one I decided to set aside, and the other I decided to continue to work on. Except it’s all unconnected scenes. Imagine, if you will, 50k words of unconnected stuff that might or might not be usable in a story. Now, I need to smack myself in the head a few times, settle on a basic plot, see if I have anything that will work toward that plot/character arc, and get to work on it.

One thing I did learn is that I can actually get 2k words written in a day’s time if I force myself to sit down and write for 20 minutes, take a break for 10, then write for another 20. Lather, rinse, repeat. So, NaNo did make me sit down and write. I didn’t write much of anything useful, but I think there are a few things in that file that can be repurposed.

This story nugget/thingie/nuisance is going to get written whether I like it or not. Then, I’m gonna have lots of fun ripping it to pieces and editing the life out of it.

Also, your blog post ‘The House That Structure Built’ is quite helpful.
Double also, when will you be giving us that list of 25 things about setting? =D?

I won for the 6th year in a row. The last three years I’ve tried to fool myself into thinking that hey, maybe I won’t do it this year, I have nothing left to prove. Somehow its siren call always sucks me in. Since it seems to work for me, I’ll just assume I’m doing it every year unless I have a good reason not to.

So right now I have 54k or so and will get a couple thousand more words today before midnight comes. But I’m not done with the story. I think I have at least 30k to go and now aiming to finish it by the end of the year. Hopefully before Christmas. I’ve only finished the story inside NaNo in three of my wins, but went on to finish it later in the other two cases, so I’m confident of doing the same this year.

I kind of stopped doing NaNo in the middle of it when I realized the story I was writing had no plot whatsoever. That was about the the third week in. Yeah, I’m pretty depressed about that. On the other hand, I have about 5,000 words for my new story and I’m rather proud of that. Thank the awesome Prussia for December! I get off work and no holidays for me! Booyah!!!

Man, I needed to read this this morning. I “won” NaNoWriMo – 56K word-long cheesy romance novel that actually has a beginning, middle and end – and had a great time doing it. The story I wrote this month was just for fun, and I really want to use the momentum I gained to get back to work on my “real” novel. I learned a lot this month about how I write and when I’m the most productive, so I’m hoping I can transition that into my year-round writing.

But this week’s been rough. My head still has my NaNo book in it, and I need to get back to thinking about my “real” book, so I haven’t been doing any writing. As a result, I just feel like a boring legal secretary again instead of a real writer. So I really, REALLY needed to hear “shut the fuck up and keep writing.” Because that’s what I need to do.

NaNo went very well for me this year. Gonna be hitting 65k tonight, with another 5k to go before my planned ending for the novel. Definitely going to work on it this coming week because I wanna get down to editing this massive 70k beast. I definitely skipped a few scenes and a lot of the scenes that did go in are missing a ton of description, not to mention I have to tighten the dialogue and the story as well.

On the whole, it was my second attempt at writing a novel proper, the first was a submissions pitch for Black Library and that attempt kinda failed because I spent too much time on planning and editing and not enough on writing. Comparitively for NaNo, I kicked my inner editor in the face and told him to shut up and let me work on writing. Planning was only about 5% of the effort.

I just wrote and wrote and wrote. I like the style for NaNo although I do think it is rather brutal, particularly for me since I only get about 2 maybe 3, in rare cases, hours a day to write. But I did like the flow of thoughts and all the unexpected twists in plot, character, dialogue and all that showed up. It was like I was thinking of writing one thing and then when I sit to write, I do that and then I keep working in more and more stuff that seems unrelated at times but by the time I am done, I have a 2000-ish scene that is fairly coherent. *mind-blown*

So yeah, I rather liked the experience, and I am definitely entering again next year.

my first try and i (ahem) won with a day to spare.

i might even give it a go again next year and have the forethought to have a plot that goes somewhere.

this was merely an idea, a pivotal moment and where i thought it would end, the rest was filler, some great filler, some rubbish filler, but i wrote it, all of it, and the first draft is finished.

i could sometimes feel it pouring from my brain, taking form, and from years of blogging, a touch of journalism and now a fully fledged 50, 778 word long story, i can clearly tell now that it is clearly written in my very own style.

This was my first NaNoWriMo and I won it in the first week. I finished my novel, in all it’s 90k glory, on the 27th. NaNoWriMo has fit my “get it all down and screw the screaming plotholes” method of drafting, and got me to try an outline for the first time, which worked a treat. I’m going to let the novel sit for a while and give my other ones some much-deserved attention. Once either a month has passed or my main project is ready for submission (EEEEEE), I’ll return to my NaNovel and assess the damage.

Final thoughts on National Novel Writing Month? I’m an idiot for not trying sooner. It’s so much FUN. I will definitely give it another shot next year.

@Ann Elise (and everybody, really) –

Why would you wait until next year to write again, if it was so much fun?

– c.

“For the sweet sake of Saint Fuck, keep on writing.” I want that on a coffee mug, stat. Or a tattoo. I can’t decide. *grin*

I didn’t do NaNoWriMo, but I think a lot of what you wrote applies to writing in general. Never stop, always finish what you started, and you aren’t done when you think you are. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought a story is done, only to go back and revise ONE MORE TIME. There’s always one more time, eh?

On a slightly random note, I can’t figure out why my avatar never shows up, anymore, when I post. It used to. It thwarts me…*shakes fist*

My reply grew and grew until it became its own blog post.

http://www.dmperez.com/2011/11/30/nanowrimo-mission-accomplished/

[...] read Chuck Wendig‘s post, “The NaNoWriMo Epilogue: Miles To Go Before You Sleep.” This post started as a reply to Chuck’s post, and what Chuck says there is gospel [...]

I finished the 50,000 words last night so technically I won. However, the book took on a life of its own and I’ve only completed about 75% of the my “Zero Draft.” When I get home from work tonight, I’ll keep plugging away until the story is told.

I didn’t win either, but I got about 30k and I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written, so I can’t complain. But ho-my-gawd is it going to need more writing and enough polishing to make a turd shine.

I tried NaNoWriMo a few years ago but ditched after a couple of days. Last year I did something that I called GloManWriMo (Global Manifesto Writing Month), where I focused on writing a 10K non-fiction piece (using the term “manifesto” very loosely). In the end, I felt discouraged because a) I wound up “pantsing” through the whole thing and b) the draft was 90% excrement and I’m not sure the other 10% was worth saving. It came out like a bunch of tenuously connected mini-essays.

I think that NaNoWriMo, and other large scale writing projects, are great in and of themselves, but they are dangerously like decorating a room by tossing everything you want into it, regardless of where it goes, if it works, if it fits or if it makes any sense at all. Then you have to roll up your sleeves and clean up the room, which can take a lot longer.

Actually, this is a stumbling block for me with a lot of longer writing projects: trying to accept up front that I may do a whole bunch of work in my first pass but that perhaps 10 – 20% of that may be usable. At best. Which is something that I just need to accept, wasteful as it seems.

I still agree with your post though, Chuck. I also like the “bus from Speed” analogy – very fitting.

I’m at 52331 words.
I’m continuing my push for at least 1k a day until the draft is done.
Then, and only then, I’ll take a little down time to distance myself from it. Maybe outline the other idea I’ve had nipping at my heels this whole time.

Finished yesterday afternoon at around 50,3k. The thing is I enjoyed it, but it was also one of the most incredibly frustrating experiences of my life.

I have not written much since High School – Hell, I haven’t read a ton since High School. Every year I saw NaNoWriMo go by and thought ‘what if’. I had decided to start doing it this year, but I threw out a jumble of an outline on Nov 14th, signed up, and just started fucking writing. One of the benefits to the new job is 4 days on 3 days off, which meant I had an extra amount of time to work with this, and as a result wrote pretty exclusively during the weekends.

The part that was the high I was not expecting was when I got back to writing after a break. There would be a point where I had to run an errand, or take a shower, find my pants and stop writing for a bit. And after a point I’d have the same feeling I did when I fell in love with a show and it got canceled, or there was a book I had waited for the sequel for but then the author got axed by a piranha before it was done. I’m pretty familiar with that feeling.

I’m not familiar with the feeling of making it go away and replacing it with realization, because I’ve never written something that I wanted to know the ending of, not known it, and then completed it and had that sensation. If anything, that was the drug I had during NaNoWriMo. And that’s the part I’m going to take away.

The frustrating parts are pretty well documented, and are the sort of details that I’ll leave to flea markets.

Thanks for being a Sherpa through it, Chuck – you definitely made this possible for me.

Finished yesterday afternoon at around 50,3k. The thing is I enjoyed it, but it was also one of the most incredibly frustrating experiences of my life.

I have not written much since High School – Hell, I haven’t read a ton since High School. Every year I saw NaNoWriMo go by and thought ‘what if’. I had decided to start doing it this year, but I threw out a jumble of an outline on Nov 14th, signed up, and just started fucking writing. One of the benefits to the new job is 4 days on 3 days off, which meant I had an extra amount of time to work with this, and as a result wrote pretty exclusively during the weekends.

The part that was the high I was not expecting was when I got back to writing after a break. There would be a point where I had to run an errand, or take a shower, find my pants and stop writing for a bit. And after a point I’d have the same feeling I did when I fell in love with a show and it got canceled, or there was a book I had waited for the sequel for but then the author got axed by a piranha before it was done. I’m pretty familiar with that feeling.

I’m not familiar with the feeling of making it go away and replacing it with realization, because I’ve never written something that I wanted to know the ending of, not known it, and then completed it and had that sensation. If anything, that was the drug I had during NaNoWriMo. And that’s the part I’m going to take away.

The frustrating parts are pretty well documented, and are the sort of details that I’ll leave to flea markets.

I’ll keep working on it because I don’t think it’s done, and that sensation will not go away until I crush it. However, I think I want to get better at writing. The other unexpected side effect was that I had more ideas that I wanted to write by the end of the month than I did when I started. I may do some things that were a little less intensely thought out before returning to this. I also would be curious to see what it looks like after I’ve gotten a lot more practice in, and see what I can do with it at that point.

NaNoWriMo is really interesting mainly as a ‘Holy crap I just went through that’ experience. I donated to keep the madness going.

Thanks for being a Sherpa through it, Chuck – you definitely made this possible for me.

I am not going to be waiting again next year Soon as I get the nano novel edited and to first draft status, I am going to be starting on a warhammer 40,000 novel for black library

I sat on this story for over a year, scratching out 5 chapters… Nano was my trigger to make some strides, so now I stand at about 70K instead of 18K…. the book is not done but I’m on a roll now, so I will finish it in December. I needed to get my ass in gear. Nano and a certain penmonkey helped me stop talking about it and DO IT.

Load the guns, brew the ink, and get to work, because I am a WRITER, and I’m done fucking around. I will finish the shit that I started.

Oh, and I have a whole new book in my head that sprouted whilst I wrote my current WIP, so now I am cursed/blessed with a new story that my innards will demand that I write.

This sort of madness suits me well.

I finished as in reached 51k but I’m not DONE with the story. Right now, this set of characters weren’t talking loudly to me and considering that this is the second ‘novel’ set in the world setting I am working on, I do want them to talk louder. I just need to let this particular story ferment and work on my other projects, including the one that I did for Camp NaNo this past August.

I did NaNo last year and “won”, though I only finished half of my first draft. I think the main reason why it worked for me and I didn’t have utter sludge was that I had the main arc of the story and most of the beginning already clear before I started. And it was great in that it gave me the kick I need to start the thing. I did crash a bit after, and it took me a while to get myself together after November ended. I’m in polish mode for the manuscript now.

I didn’t do it this year is because I didn’t have the new arc quite pinned, and doing NaNo alongside major diy home renovations made me laugh like a demented sidekick. For me, I’m not sure if the pace works well for me or not, but for the next story I’m about to start, I definitely plan on putting out a consistent word count.

Great post! I seem to have a decision to make, and perhaps someone who’s more experience than I can help me.

I’ve reached 50K, and have learned a lot about my story during November. It’s given me way more depth and new mysteries that I can plumb. My dilemma is this: In December, do I go back and use those new discoveries to essentially rewrite my half-finished draft so I can continue on how I want? I’ll be able to use good chunks of what I already have in there, so I won’t be completely restarting.

Another option is to continue on, create a rough outline of my changes, and pretend that I’ve already written what I want.

What do you folks recommend?

I got ~32k on the raw draft of my WiP, which more-or-less finished it – so I’m counting that as a win.

Final thoughts on NaNoWriMo – anything that gets an aspiring author writing regularly like a pro is good and worthwhile. Now, get back to work!

I lost a few days in early November and had trouble catching up, what with a very busy month, but I believe I will finish the novel, er, the malformed lump of story, by the end of the day, GMT+1. I have a whole plan to help this baby grow until it becomes something I can show to the outside world.
My novel is all over the place, which is not a good sign but this was how it turned out. I hope to straighten it up soon and hopefully to flesh it out while removing the irredeemable parts.
NaNoWriMo was a learning experience, I hope to be back next year.

I “failed” at NaNo this year, but that’s not entirely a fair assessment. I’d started writing before NaNo started, and just joined in on the communal energy pool for the month. It’s fun to all gather together and cheer each other on.

That being said, I think NaNo is a fantastic thing. While entire novels don’t have to be cranked out in 30 days’ time, it’s a good test to see how you work with deadlines, if you can make time to get your work done, and if you’ve got IT in you. And I don’t mean that giant spider thing from that one Stephen King book.

“You’re like the bus from Speed: you either write or you explode.”

I’ve been on the lookout for a great analogy to use when explaining to people why I have to write. I’ve found a winner. Thanks!

I finished, my first time out, and yes, I’m quite proud of that! Nov is a hellacious month for me, so I made sure that the days that I had time to write, I WROTE as much as I could.

The novel is nowhere near completed – I ended up writing a fantasy without doing any worldbuilding – so my first draft is barely a zero draft. More like a -1 draft. But I will finish, and polish it until it shines.

And I slept with your four books on writing, my Kindle under my pillow, and your encouragement throughout made the difference for me. I started ‘writing’ in Feb 2011, and now I’m no longer an ‘aspiring’ writer… I’m a writer, dammit!

Thanks, I think!

This was my first Nanowrimo. I finished with 50000+, but the book is nowhere near done. I hadn’t had enough time to plan it out or it might be in better shape at this point. I ended up writing scenes as they occurred to me rather than in any sort of linear fashion. My book also will not be finished for at least another 25000 to 50000 words. But, it gave me a good start. I enjoyed the discipline of sitting down to write every day; it showed me what I can do with that measly hour or so before bed every night after a full day’s work, family duty, housecleaning, etc. I did have “spare” time after all.

I will keep doing my nightly writing until the book is done. I will miss my daily word counting graph though, I found it inspiring to have a visual for my daily goal. Once this draft is finally finished, I’ll begin the next one while this one steeps for awhile. Once the next one reaches its steeping point, I’ll come back to this one and see what kind of mess I have.

I found Nanowrimo to be great fun, and I proved to myself I could do it. It was fun to join in with friends around the world and cheer each other on. Writing is solitary for the most part, so it was a nice change of pace.

This year, I finished my 50,000 word goal. But the novel is not done. I figure I’m about 2/3 of the way through at this point. I will keep writing. No doubt about that. I’m going to finish this thing and see if I can get it published. I just wanted to say thanks. Your posts have given me a kick-in-the-ass this month and helped me get here.

I stopped working on the Nanovel about 10 days in, when I knew it was a more ambitious style for me and I wouldn’t be able to “win”. I won it last year, hitting a little over 51k words but maybe about 50% of the story.

On the 10th I decided to go back to my previous WIP and finish the revision instead of working on a new project. Much happier overall, but I still like what NaNo does. I’m writing year round now, but may try NaNo again with a new idea next year. It’s a fun way to get the kernel of a story out of the head on on paper.

I’m in the “won but not done” category. I’m sitting at about 55k, with another ~20k left to write (if my outline is any kind of accurate).

It was fun, and a nice ego boost to prove I could write something longer than 5,000 words if I planned it all out and made sure it had a purpose. I found the community was a little odd (even for my tastes) and most people are doing it to say they’re doing it, not to actually produce a piece worth anything.

Combined with all the writing I did at work this month, my blog posts, and the novel, I probably wrote a total of ~150k words. I find that writing begets writing begets writing. The more I write, the more I want to write, so the more I write.

Got that little purple bar on the 29th but I am nowhere’s near done. As a proud member of the NaNoWriMo Rebels, I worked on 3 different projects throughout the month: a novel I didn’t finish 2 years ago; a nonfiction book about knitting for fairies, werewolves, vampires, and zombies; and a short story that popped in when I wasn’t looking.

I’m studying the Scrivener for Windows tutorial and planning to work with it and finish what I started. Goals: novel first draft by 12/31/11; nonfiction structure and proposal by 1/31/12; short story by 12/5/11.

This year was my third stab at NaNoWriMo, and I barely dented the 50k goal, getting only 5k words to paper. The first year I did this I got 25k words into a story. This fact has had me depressed for a bit, and made me seriously question myself. Why did this happen? Do I really want to write?

My answer to me was this: I do want to tell stories, but I didn’t make the time in November. I didn’t make it a priority, and didn’t care enough for the idea I had. I have things that I’d like to say, so I’m not done with writing in general, but this November was not the month for it. I learned something this month. I always do, and I will in the future.

This year I only got to about 6.5k before everything went to hell. My grandmother died and a week after another family died. Along with that I had around seven exams and seven papers due all in the same month. At the same time, I don’t feel bad at all. I mean, sure I wish I could have ‘won’, but I’ll take my As and have bacon because of them. I really had wanted to write more than I did, but since I’m graduating from the good ol’ high school two years in advance, I needed to get all of the credits I was taking and not fuck things up. Thankfully, I haven’t…yet.

Either way, I fully intend on finishing this. I’ll get a chunk of it done in December, mainly because after the 17th I’ll have up until January 17th off. Woo!

*another family member died.

Wow, yeah, my whole family didn’t die. Oops.

I hit the 50,000-word finish line, but cheated a bit at the end by writing the most awful ending, knowing I’d eventually have to go back and make it less awful (this is opposed to the awful things I *unintentionally* wrote during the course of the month).

Last year I only hit 19,000 or so words, so I’m pleased to have more-than-doubled that. Next? I’m printing out the first five chapters and sub-editing the shit out of them. Then the next five, then the…and so on. Picking up appalling grammar, typos and – most importantly – the sort of plot threads you drop when you’re writing from the hip as if this is a role-playing campaign and you’re throwing random shit out there for PCs to react to.

If I’m lucky I can rethread this thing and make it look like a tightly planned tale from A-to-Z. If not, hopefully my girlfriend likes it at least.

Before doing NaNo this year, I made to sure train by writing every day. I found 750words.com to work really well for me, as I was able to make writing part of my everyday regiment. I diligently submitted 750 words everyday, and then when WriMo hit, I kicked it up to 1667.

This was my first year finishing NaNoWriMo, and while I was proud for knocking out the 50,000 words, I was still sort of in awe of how much more I have to do before this is even close to a complete novel. Most of it feels disjointed and in sore need of rewriting. Thanks for posting this– I’ll keep it in mind as I continue to hem and haw over my heap of randomness.

I finished with 50,026 words in the wee hours of the 30th, so with about 22 hours to spare. A long way from last year’s 127,649 (two novels), but still good. I cheated this year – used it to work on an existing piece (a WIP epic-length fanfiction) – so I can’t claim to have won entirely properly, but it doesn’t really matter. I’m happy with what I’ve gotten done, and it’s got me off my ass and back into the writing chair. I’m going to keep writing at a rate of a couple of thousand words a day all through December and January (summer holidays fuck yeah).

I finished. Little bit of 11th hour going on but I got that word count in. Now a break. Not from writing but to get some space before I start the revising process. It will be long, it will be strange and it will require getting the kidneys back inside the manuscript but it can be done. And in the meanwhile other projects need writing and revising. Still working towards that first sale.

But first, methinks, some celebration. I just wrote a whole mess of words, methinks a bit of a reward is in order.

I was looking at my outline like I was all set to go–
But as I looked closer at it and started writing, it was like one of those impressionist paintings. From far away it was fine, but up close you see the flaws.
I managed to throw some words at the screen, and some of them stuck, but mostly it was trying to get through some of how I wanted to say what I wanted to say.
In other words, finding the tone and the voice of the work.
So I have that, and I have a good start. And about 16k, of which I’m pretty sure 10k is usable.
And those 10k I did in one day.
So I didn’t “win” in the strict, Biblical sense of the word. But I know where I’m going and how I’m going to get there. And it doesn’t seem as formidable as it once did.

I wouldn’t have done NaNo if I hadn’t started reading your blog in October, and your writing tips were much appreciated. Thank you, Chuck Wendig, for the kick in the pants. I feel like I got what I needed out of this experience (sparkly-purple-bar be damned), and what I needed as an excuse to pick up regular writing habits.
This was my first NaNoWriMo. Didn’t make the final word count, and I’m okay with this. My novel is likely going to be another 50k on top of the current 42 thousand, so I ain’t even bothered. What was I going to do in December anyway besides eat latkes and bang my fists on a keyboard?

You win the Internet yet again for “You’re like the bus from Speed: you either write or you explode.”

Started 12k in. Added 50k in November. Figure I still have another 20k-30k left to do in December. Blood for the Blood Muse! Or as you so often put it, “Beard the fuck on!”

NaNoWriMo went pretty well this year. I finished the challenge, in that I reached 50k (validated at 50016 words), but the story itself did not resolve. I’ll continue working on it in a few months or so, but I’m done for now.

I never really plan out what I’m writing, so NaNo works out very well for me. I start the story and I write to find out what happens, until it’s done. Of course, I could write every day without the trappings of NaNo, and frequently I do, but I’m very good at starting stories and not finishing them, so NaNoWriMo at least keeps me focused on the same story for a month.

[...] to guide participants through the rehabilitation process. Chuck Wendig has graciously offered us a list of suggestions which alludes to that Robert Frost poem about suicide. Sound advice for all NaNo participants [...]

I finished…just, and I’m nowhere near finished (that could only make sense on this site).

Like you said my novel is a twisting lumpy baby thing (I’m paraphrasing, far to lazy to scroll up again), and I need to beat it and prod it until it starts to form some resemblance to an actual human child/book (that’s how you get kids to behave, right…big sticks?).

I’m barely halfway through the actual plot and I think it’s going to need so many edits there isn’t a number big enough to express just how many that is. I would try and think of a new number to try and explain it but that would take away from writing time.

Time to hit 50 miles per hour and find an unfinished section of freeway to jump!

This is my 5th year to do NaNoWriMo, and my very first “Win”. I’m really really happy about that – as I have a history (and a long one – I’m almost 55) of not completing creative projects I start.

I’m also really happy about the fact that while I don’t have anything close to a ‘finished’ first draft, I have a hell of a start. And unlike prior years, this is a true “story”, and not just gibberish I used to fill up my word count.

I don’t know that I’ll ever do this again, although I’m very supportive of the entire idea. Frankly, I’ll be glad to get back to my blogging community (which is primarily made up of writers at this point). And since I also write creatively as part of my full time job, there’s no possibility that I’ll stop writing.

One thing I’m looking forward to. I haven’t read a single word of what I wrote for NaNoWriMo, and I’m looking forward to it. A huge cocktail and a good sense of humor will be my “tools”.

This was my first year. I discovered NaNo by an accident the day before it started because a casual friend was doing it. I was intrigued, jumped into it with both legs without really having a clear idea of where my novel was going, if I had enough words in me to finish it and so on. I finished yesterday after being behind every single day until the second to last. It was a pain, my manuscript is nowhere near at a place I would consider sending it to an editor or agent. But I still managed to plug out 50k words, I am proud of myself. I do agree with you though that everyone who participated is a winner. It is in the process of learning that we find ourselves as some wise old git once said and this year has been precisely that for me, a learning experience.

I didn’t ‘win’ but I did get the first draft entirely completed of my novel. At the moment it’s 40k, and I wasn’t going to write a load of rubbish to make it up to 50, just so I could win. The story doesn’t need it. Gonna let it rest now until new year to start the rounds of editing
The write 1,660 words doesn’t fit well with me – I tend to write entire chapters in one go, and it certainly doesn’t fit into my university schedule, with essay deadlines being dumped in the middle of november and the end of december.
Nonetheless, I’m proud of myself, and it’s made me become much more concise as a writer.

This is my 2nd NaNo and I hated it. No ‘win’ yet. I wanted to gouge its eyes out, stab it in the back multiple times, put it in a black plastic bag and dump it off a cliff.

I started off with the idea that NaNo throw around- no plot no problem. Just write. I knew beforehand that this didn’t make sense. And so I ran into a lot poo and pretty much this poo remained. I realise no plot doesn’t equal no problem it equals big problems – MEGA FECKING problems. An idea of some sort wouldn’t go astray.

NaNo did teach me something though, it taught me no amount of writing months can get me to write if I don’t write. Genius. NaNo has also furthered my hatred for November.

At the end of it all I have 30,000 words. It has clown suicides, apartments developing brains, a dirty shower that has a filed a report over its owner’s lack of hygiene, one manic depressive duck, the world’s last alcoholic and a zombie who has had one too many meals. I will continue this, perhaps I will turn it into a series of short stories.

I wrote before November and for the: ‘sake of Saint Fuck I’ll keep on writing.’

I’ve learned this lesson from deadlines before. For as long as you can, pretend that you’re still doing the same task. Yes, I finished the novel, yes it’s a gorgeous 73,000 words, but I’ve other stories to tell, short fiction, for now, some gaming material, some comic scripts, but as long as I treat it like NaNoWriMo, that is, as long as I keep going like a bear is chasing me, then I should be able to keep my momentum going.

This was my first try at NaNoWriMo, and I found it to be THE biggest learning experience I’ve ever had so far, on writing. In the space of one month it has answered many questions for me, and taught me things that I can even apply to my day job. Come hell or high water I was duty bound to finished within the time allowed and right there that taught me something valuable that, at my ripe age, I should already know. If you really, really decide something, the chances are much better it will actually happen.

I also learned that when you hit a roadblock – or just don’t know where the hell to go with the story – the fact that you have so many words a day to write REALLY forces you to find a way out of the problem. Is it a good solution? Probably not, not in my case anyway (it will likely take me many month to attempt to carve the story I wrote into something that isn’t too horrendous) but the point is, the road block didn’t win. My goddam pigheadedness did. And gosh-darn it, I’m gonna see this thing through.

In other words, yes I completed… erm…won the thing. And damn I’m proud!

I “lost” so hard. As hard as you can “lose”.

HOWEVER.

This wasn’t even a thing, because exciting things are happening for the novel I’ve been slaving over for a year and some. So, whatever. Maybe next year I’ll be able to pound something out, but this year I’m happy I didn’t.

I “won” this year, as I did last year also. Before I started last year I had done a plot and a full list of scenes from beginning to end. I did pretty well at sitting down every morning and writing for a couple of hours, and finished the story at about 51,000 words.
Then I started reading all sorts of “how-to” books and blogs, all full of great information, but I did a lot more reading than re-writing. Last August I decided my second book would be a sequel – big push to tidy up the first one so that things would at least try to flow together. Once again i did a plot outline, and some scenes, but I had big gaps in my story – I figured I’d never get to 50,000. I wasn’t as excited about the story, and my head was full of all those rules for characters and settings and dialogue. It was very hard this time to just let go and write, 9-11 – every morning.
So I’d write whenever – often 10-12 at night, with loud tunes and red wine. And as I got into the scenes, the characters and events seemed to take on a life of their own, filling in spaces, adding little meanderings. I hit 50,000 a couple of days early, and kept going – the story wasn’t done. I figure will be maybe 65,000 words when done this draft.
I’m looking forward to editing this and the previous book, or at least re-reading them. It certainly was a good exercise in focusing – difficult when you’re retired.

I did it! My first year making more than a token attempt (last year barely counts) and I wrote a 71,000 word novel And…like you said…it’s going to need some major attention in editing. I’ll be picking it back up in January to edit and for now I’m doing some fun writing exercises to keep my writing muscles limber and on Monday I plan to pick my original novel (started 4 years ago) back up and work on finally finishing that first draft!

I reached the ‘magic’ number and it still feels great. Had only managed three chapters of a story prior to NaNoWriMo, ‘cos I kept going back and rewriting them over and over and over and over and over and over and over…well you get the picture. The current story is about two-thirds of the way through and I’m still plugging away at it. That also feels great, given the aforementioned three chapter incident (ahem).

NaNoWriMo was a breakthrough tool for me. On downtime from writing I’ve started preparing for the first rewrite by reading writers’ blogs about back story (for the author or the reader?) and description (too much, too little, when?) Yup, I’m hooked.

I didn’t finish, but I’m continuing to work on it. The NaNo timeline doesn’t work all that well for me, but there’s no reason I can’t keep writing. After all, you shouldn’t just write for one month a year, right?

I didn’t finish. I’m still working on the story outline, and into the research stage. I”ve vowed to finish this novel or die.
NaNoWriMo doesn’t work for me. I write almost every day, and when I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing.
So I will finish this novel, and then put it away to marinate while I start the next one.
As a wise man once said, it’s either write or explode.

I hit 50k with an hour to spare. This was my third attempt and my first “win”. The story itself is a good 30k from wrapping up, so I took a few days break, and am trying to put 1k words a day until this ‘shit draft’ is done.

I like NaNoWriMo, because it pushed me to write more words and more often than I had been previously, but now I need to carry that on and make it a habit.

As an aside, @Chuck, your posts have been fantastic to read. I found you through Go Into the Story, and have been checking back ever since.

Thank you.

[...] exhortation to Just. Write. is brilliant, vintage Chuck. IOW, just because you finished (or didn’t), don’t get the [...]

[...] time from the future to teach you what they’ve learned. I’m thinking Nathan Lowell or Chuck Wendig since they say lots of stuff on the topic of getting words [...]

[...] All you have to do to win during the national writing month of November is to enter 50,000 words or more into the National Novel Writing Month website and you get access to a little banner that you can display on your website or comments around the internet. Presumily, the words have to be coherent to readers of the English language, but I have no idea as to what extent this is checked. In a fascinating blog at ‘Terrible Minds’ Chuck Wendig puts forth the idea that since those who complete the process are all winners, everybody who falls short must be a loser. [...]