AND IT IS OVER.
Er, over-ish.
I mean, you still have today and tomorrow yet.
But, by and large, National Novel Writing Month has reached its conclusion for many and will close up shop soon enough. So, as always, time to gaze back and reflect.
How’d you do?
What did you learn?
Where will you go from here?
Let’s see some evaluation. Not just in terms of you as a writer, but in terms of how utilizing this month was for you — in other words, evaluate NaNoWriMo, too.
Drop in the comments and give me 20. Or something.
(Here I will casually remind: 30 DAYS IN THE WORD MINES is still 33% off until December 1st with code NANOWRIMO, and the NaNoWriMo Storybundle is still running, too.)
Evelyn Alexie says:
It was good for me.
I made a vow that in November, I would write every day. I would use the impetus (or mass hysteria, lemming impulse, whatever) created by myriad writers all writing at once to encourage me to keep going. Even if I hadn’t “won” by writing 50k, I would have considered myself a winner for keeping my vow. I’ve gotten back into the habit.
November 29, 2015 — 12:42 PM
Kay Camden says:
I need to use you for inspiration. The longer I put off writing, the scarier it gets. I’m about two paragraphs into my WIP and it’s been on hold due only to fear. Well, I have been busy. Okay, but busy never stopped me before. So it’s just the fear. And every day that goes by that I don’t write, the fear ripens.
Okay why am I admitting this on the internet?
Thanks though. I need to do it. Get back into the habit of sitting before the WIP every day. If you can do it, I can do it. Right? *cries*
November 29, 2015 — 2:51 PM
Aura Eadon says:
You can do it. No writer was born good, they all became good by presence and persistence. On going learning, writing never stops improving and doing it continuously can only make you better. Don’t judge your work, don’t expect perfection, just get the words out if writing is what you want to do. Because what you want, you can achieve regardless of how good you think you are. The only necessary condition to achieve your dreams is your intent to do so. Everything else is learning and presence.
November 29, 2015 — 2:57 PM
gothkittylady says:
If the WIP isn’t speaking to you right now because you’re scared? Sit down and write something that isn’t scary. Write something you never intend to share – something that’s just for you. The best way to get rid of a monster in the closet isn’t always getting up and opening the closet door, sometimes it’s finding another monster you’re not scared of and letting that one take up residence under your bed for a while.
November 29, 2015 — 3:32 PM
Tom Erdman says:
I was in the same boat, and it took a friend/fellow writer to just tell me I was afraid. Then he told me to write, especially if it actually means something to me. I haven’t managed every day, but knowing fear is part of the issue helps me keep it at bay with a cattle prod, or whatever happens to be handy.
December 1, 2015 — 7:58 AM
Kay Camden says:
What’s with this fear, anyway? Where does it come from? It’s completely new to me.
It’s nice to know it’s normal though. Or, maybe not normal, but at least it’s experienced by others. Are we normal? lol
I think I’m finally experiencing pressure to produce. People–strangers–reading my books. Expecting things. That’s what’s scary. No wonder writers are so weird.
You’re all right, though. Persistence, cattle prods, just sitting down to write something. I’m on it. I wrote two sentences yesterday. Repeat, repeat, repeat, and wait for the dam to break.
December 1, 2015 — 10:46 AM
MonaKarel says:
I did not go into this NaNo with any expectation of making final word count, and I won’t. Too much else went on this month (no, not family stuff!) But I hit my stride on a story I’ve been chewing on. Win
November 29, 2015 — 12:44 PM
Elena Linville says:
Well, I won (yay!), but my novel is far from finished (not even halfway, sigh), so December will be another NaNo month for me, though I might slow down a little on the daily word count. January might be NaNo as well, until I finish the first draft.
This was my third NaNo and I found that I was a lot more relaxed about it than before. I had won the previous 2 so I knew I could do it.
I learned that having an extensive outline helps keep the flow going, but that I deviated from it almost from the get go. And those detours took me to some interesting places.
So all in all, I enjoyed my crazy month of November and will definitely do it again next year!
November 29, 2015 — 12:49 PM
Jack Swanzy says:
Didn’t do NaNo this year. Needed to go deeper, not broader. Plan to do it next year, think it is a valuable incentivizer.
November 29, 2015 — 12:50 PM
Aura Eadon says:
For me the NaNo was a challenge to reach the state of writing consistently on a daily basis and observing the averages instead of the specific daily numbers. Overall I consider it a successful endeavour and I managed to hit the 50K within three weeks. The work has not stopped of course as I am aiming to finish a 90K word novel so it continues at the same rate of daily writing. I want my writing to support me financially and I fully appreciate and accept that writing an average of 50K words every month is what I’ll need to do. This is the second first-draft novel I am going to finish this year, something that makes me happy. One side-effect of doing NaNo is that I verified that I love writing enough to want to be doing it full time. Next steps after I finish draft 1 of this novel, is to edit draft 3 of the novel I wrote earlier this year, and then move to draft 2 of this novel.
November 29, 2015 — 12:55 PM
Adina says:
I had a very similar side effect! THIS is what I want to be doing.
November 29, 2015 — 1:04 PM
Dianna Gunn says:
This is actually the first year I HAVEN’T done Nanowrimo in 10 years(this would have been my eleventh). I’ve still gone out to events because the local Nanowrimo community is frankly the best thing about the city I live in, and I’ve been in our local chatroom(it’s hosted on a specific site for us, not a Nano subchat). It was tough to stay on track and keep editing with all the people noveling around me, but also kind of freeing to not participate in the competitive aspect of it.
I’ve got a big backlog of past Nanowrimo projects I have to edit(it’s how I’ve written most of my books) but I’m already excited to get back on the Nanowrimo band wagon next year.
This year I’ve also gathered some Nanoers who are planning to edit their novels in the new year to form a year-round editing support group. I’m really excited about this because I love the Nanowrimo community but there really isn’t anything remotely comparable for editing. It’s a lonely job!
November 29, 2015 — 12:57 PM
lpstribling says:
Didn’t do NaNo this year, but I did write, and I’m happy about that. I was able to get out some fan-fiction, work on my own novel, and the blog of course. Twitter never counts…ever. It’s not even real writing. But I did get some Facebook posts in, which is huge.
November 29, 2015 — 1:02 PM
Adina says:
This is my third year winning. I’m still revising last year’s. It’s been interesting to reflect on that and how 2 dimensional much of that story was at the end of NaNo, versus this year. This year’s probably has a third more to go, but my characters feel like people, and I’ve worked out more of the story. I’m learning a lot, both from revising and then employing that while writing this year’s. And from finishing my work. 😉
November 29, 2015 — 1:02 PM
Nellie says:
This year actually kind of sucked for me in the realm of NaNo. I had a story that I liked but I was adding too many elements into it that I would need to actually do some research in and since I thought of the idea last minute, there was zero prep time. Plus, writing every day, I don’t know if it’s because right now my job is kind of stressful that as much as I told myself to write over my lunch, I didn’t do much other than try to zen out and destress for a moment or two.
Right now I’m about to pull out past NaNos because I never finished them. (FINISH THE STORY!?!? WHAT SHENANIGANS IS THAT?!?!?) so that is something I will be concentrating on. I have several stories that I have in the same kind of world, just in different sections, a Steampunk style. I’ll see how well I can get that fleshed out better as well as finding a group that can crit as some local writing groups that I was in are kind of petering out. :/
November 29, 2015 — 1:05 PM
Peg says:
I agree, we need to raise what we’ve previously birthed in NaNo. Maybe there should be a NaEdNoWriMo.
November 29, 2015 — 1:25 PM
Nellie says:
Depending on how things work out and how fast I can rewrite/edit my past stories, I might be using the NaNo Camps to do that stuff as well.
November 29, 2015 — 1:31 PM
Dianna Gunn says:
There was actually a NaNoEdMo forum, the challenge officially ran in March. Not enough people participated to keep it going though. It might be possible to restart it successfully now since Nanowrimo’s grown so much
November 29, 2015 — 5:08 PM
Elan Auman says:
I won! I had a baby earlier this year, and the pregnancy was really difficult so I sort of stopped writing for most of it so I could focus on me, and my two year old.
Doing NaNo was great. It felt SO GOOD to get back in the habit of writing a lot again. It was stressful – feeling like I *had* to make the word count every day (even though I was tracking 3 days ahead just in case) was hard, especially with Thanksgiving. I don’t know that I’ll do 50k every month, but I bet I can do 40k no problem.
I was a bit of a rebel this year, doing some heavy rewrites to the first in a trilogy, and starting the second. But I got my 50k words, with an infant and a two year old no less, and it feels great.
It’s work, but most days I *really* enjoy writing. But it’ll be nice to feel like I can take a day or two off every week.
November 29, 2015 — 1:13 PM
Peg says:
Failed for the first time. Daughter got married in Vegas, (I went and to the Grand Canyon), husband had a body part amputated in a work accident first week of November and required more time than I could possibly imagine.
I’m not disappointed. I have six novels sitting here that still need rewrites and edits and felt like I sacrificed my 7th to get an inspirational refill (both Vegas and the Canyon did both in different ways).
I’m not going to write anything new until I have one of these novels ready to send out. “Finish Your Shit” has to be more important than writing new stories for the foreseeable future.
November 29, 2015 — 1:23 PM
Nellie says:
That’s a pretty busy plate you had for November. So it isn’t something to disappointed in. Life doesn’t pay attention to when NaNo is.
November 29, 2015 — 1:31 PM
Denise says:
I would not call that failing. It just wasn’t the right time. Have your own nano when everything settles down. And best wishes to your husband as he r covers.
November 29, 2015 — 1:48 PM
Aura Eadon says:
So sorry for all your troubles. You have not failed. NaNoWriMo is a challenge and a convention. It’s not natural law, it does not come above life, it is just there for fun and for challenge. You did not fail. You had your plate full of life’s challenges; those always come before artificial challenges like NaNo. If you still have doubt about whether you failed, look at your seven books. I hope things are calming down for you.
November 29, 2015 — 1:53 PM
Denise says:
I didn’t “win” by nano standards. I didn’t reach 50k but by my own standards I did. I still wrote regularly which with two jobs and a review blog is saying something. I also won because I am much further along than I was last year during nano. Yes this has taken me a long time to write and I’m okay with that. Because yesterday I sat down and figured out what I have left to write and with only about 6, maybe 7 scenes/chapters left I should have this complete by the end of the year. And that to me is winning this thing!!
What I did learn is sprints are a great way for me to write and I’ll be continuing to do it that way.
November 29, 2015 — 1:46 PM
Rebecca Douglass says:
I sailed into it and cranked out the words, well over 2000/day until the family gathered for the holiday (that was my plan–hit the target early so that I could write just a few hundred words when I could sneak away from the turkey). My outline this year was sub-par, and that is definitely a problem–I have some real work to do now to get from 55,000 words to the 80,000 that would be a finished draft, and no road map to follow.
I’ve learned a couple of things from the 2 NaNos I’ve done.
1. Having a pretty substantial outline really helps me write, and makes it easier to keep all the threads and red herrings in order (I write mysteries, so that’s super important).
2. 7 days a week makes no sense, at least not at full blast. But when I’m drafting, I really am happy to sit down and write for a shorter time on any day, even when the family is home and having fun.
3. I like the NaNo fun that goes on, and the word counter gizmo, but really, I don’t need NaNo. When I have a book to draft, I have no excuse for not doing it in a NaNo way whatever the month. That includes the planning and outlining, which makes it work for me.
(BTW, until my first NaNo, I figured myself for a pantser. I hit that about the time I was ready to cry, making order of the total mess of my first mystery, and decided that a plan would be good. It was. I’m pretty well sold on it).
November 29, 2015 — 2:05 PM
S. J. Pajonas (spajonas) says:
I did great! Wrote 54+k in November, finishing up a 78k manuscript. What did I realize? That as long as I plot out my book ahead of time, I have a much better chance of sitting at the computer and writing, not stalling.
November 29, 2015 — 2:08 PM
Maggie Maxwell says:
I’ve been a rebel this year, working to finish some WIPs instead of writing something new for once. It was a difficult decision, especially around the first few days when all I wanted to do was play in a new world. But I pushed onward and now, I have two completed WIPs plus one new short story and a third WIP rolling steadily towards its end. Thanks to NaNo for pulling me out of a funk and pushing me through a difficult month, I have my first completed novels. I’ve got a little over 2k left, but even if I stopped now, I’d call myself a winner because I hit and went beyond my NaNo goals.
November 29, 2015 — 2:13 PM
Kay Camden says:
Total winner. That’s awesome. I’m envious. Congrats.
November 29, 2015 — 2:44 PM
rchazzchute says:
Despite days off due to illness and injury, I’ll cross the finish line tonight or tomorrow morning. I’m just competitive enough that I hate to not be writing when I know others are.
I also love metrics so that Nano graph and daily log keeps me on track. I had several 5,000+ word days so when I got hurt, I still had a buffer. I ended up dictating through the pain when I couldn’t type. (I didn’t injure my hands because of Nano, I hasten to add.)
I write a lot all the time anyway, so I used to think NaNoWriMo was besides the point. However, because of Nano, November is my favorite writing month. It’s social in a way I can tolerate well. Last year I broke my personal best and wrote the first draft to a novel of which I’m very proud in eighteen days.
QED. (That’s Latin for mic drop.)
November 29, 2015 — 2:15 PM
mariahavix says:
I love the NaNo graphs and logs and numbers more than words can express. I really wish they would just let us use those metric tools all year round. Oh the pretty graph. Watching the numbers required per day go down, checking to see how many days ahead I am. So love those metrics.
November 29, 2015 — 4:28 PM
Fred G. Yost says:
Hah, I do the same thing, but I watch for how far behind I am, and how much I have to power through in order to make it on time (or, as has been the case for the last few years, finish one day early)
And congratulations to both of you!
November 29, 2015 — 5:10 PM
Kay Camden says:
I didn’t write at all. Not one word.
But I published a book! Does that count?
Okay, I’ll leave now.
November 29, 2015 — 2:43 PM
Paul Kater says:
It was a good experience again. I knew I’d write far less than the previous years and that happened. It was however a good boost in words for what I had in mind. I have no regrets. Never. Ever. I wrote. I cursed. And I put in 66.8K. There ya go.
November 29, 2015 — 2:45 PM
Ray Dean says:
I write quite a bit normally, but nano does push me to do more…the write ins and group cheer does help quite a bit… but the group also does put a damper on some things.. There’s always some-one or more that feel the need to rain on the parade… it always seems to be some of the newer folks that are trying to bolster their own spirits and say something that (hopefully) unknowingly puts someone and their process/style down. So I made a post in the local group to talk about the issue.. but it’s funny how those that do this… don’t ‘see’ themselves in the post.. and wholeheartedly agree on it.
personally, I learned that I can produce my word count and be pretty happy with the words… I used a lot of plotting this year… and I was much more prepared to know where things were going and get there… but I also did have the usual divergence in the woods…
I still have writing to do… always do… deadlines, editing, etc
But if anything this year made me feel more confident… 😀
Hope the same is true for many others…
November 29, 2015 — 4:12 PM
mariahavix says:
Done. So very done. I finished about a week early. It was hard. The entire writing was rougher than usual. (I know it sounds weird to say that it was painfully hard and yet I finished over a week early, but still true.) I feel surprisingly good about what I’ve done. It is the second in a trilogy and the first needs a lot of love but this week I decided to package them all up with all my editing notes and put them away until next year.
I’ll break out the editing sticks in January, but for now, it goes away.
What I learned from NaNoWriMo (I spent a surprising amount of time on the forums between spurts trying to be helpful)? Lots of people fail. Lots of people feel like they fail when they succeed. Lots of people feel like they succeed when they miss the goal. Lots of people hate HATE HATE their books.
Some people like to focus on the tiny (to me irrelevant) things (how many glasses of water did george drink) while ignoring the bigger questions (why is george sitting here listening to his former best friend and wife when he knows they slept together and he’s not into that).
I learned that as we learn to become better writers we try things out. Some of those things are stupid. I know I did stupid things. It is good to know I’m not the only one. It is so hard to not tell others, don’t do it! You’ll look back and be so head-slappy about it later! Most people only learn from trying, and that is important to remember for our characters too.
November 29, 2015 — 4:24 PM
Fred G. Yost says:
Huh. Today I learned that there are forums for NaNoWriMo. Only took me two years to stumble onto that little factoid.
Thanks and congratulations!
November 29, 2015 — 5:18 PM
mariahavix says:
Wow. Yay for learning new things! I’m still unclear about the NaNo chat but it seems like that is unofficial (at the very least not hosted on their site that I’ve found). The forums are…varied. Sometimes really good words of wisdom and thoughts and sometimes just people procrastinating (yo!) There are genre forums and forums on how to write and forums on everything you ever wanted to know about whatever reference and forums about how to procrastinate better or show off how awesome you are. The real trick is you can hide all the forums you don’t care about.
Congratulations to you too!
November 29, 2015 — 5:22 PM
Fred G. Yost says:
I finished my novel (novella?) right at 50k (50019, to be exact). So, cheers I guess for getting it done, and for ‘winning’ but now I’m at a really weird and unmarketable length, so I’ll either need to trim quite a bit, or add in about 20k on the next draft.
Speaking of next drafts, how are the rest of y’all approaching the revision process?
Last year I waited until January, and got fed up and trunked the whole thing after only two chapters of revisions. I’m thinking of starting revising next week, but I’d love to hear what works for everyone else.
November 29, 2015 — 5:07 PM
Rebecca Douglass says:
I find the draft does have to age some, but my tendency is to wait too long. In my defense, that’s because I have multiple projects and have to set aside the nano novel to finish up something else. Still trying to work out the best approach to editing. But I’m pretty sure that studying the whole thing and laying out a plan for the revisions is key, and might help avoid stopping after two chapters. That isn’t giving it a chance. On reflection, I think you may have come back to it too soon, not too late. The longer I wait, the more I can approach it like it’s someone else’s work, not the child of my body, birthed in blood, sweat, and tears.
November 29, 2015 — 10:33 PM
Susan says:
I am a little over 50K.
I have far more than 20 words. You can find them here if you are so inclined:
http://susan-reads.blogspot.com/2015/11/five-things-i-learned-in-nanowrimo.html
November 29, 2015 — 5:17 PM
sincerelysnide says:
I dumped over 80k onto paper. I’m glad I did it, and that I wrote my way. I didn’t try and force myself into someone else’s idea of who I am. I’m sure at least 40k will be cut, because it’s crap. But the other 40k, we’ll see.
November 29, 2015 — 5:43 PM
Keith says:
I did NaNoWriMo the last couple of years, and had fun. I went into each without expectations. The first I cranked out about 80K words, and the second 56k, I think. This year I had nothing. Nothing at all. I have a great opening, and some vague thoughts about how it might fit into the rest of the universe I’ve got going, but I think my characters are pissed at me. The last week of October I was showing the love, trying to figure out what they were up to, but nothing. So I bailed. I knew I was going to be busy, and not have quite enough time, and now looking back there was a bit of an attack of life, so I’m glad I didn’t try. But I miss the free wheeling barf it out onto the page hysteria of the month. Oh well. I promised my characters that I’ll make the time for them, if they make the time for me. And I might not be working in January….
I’m still working on revising what I’ve done the last two years, plus the chunk I’d worked on before. But, when you edit, the word count should go down, right? Mine doesn’t.
November 29, 2015 — 5:44 PM
Jacey Bedford says:
Well, the result is that I now have an additional 51k validated words added to the first draft of my upcoming novel, so the whole project stands at just over 80k words so far. The finished book will likely be 110k to 130k in length, but I’ll be happy with a first draft of 110k. So that’s a bonus. NaNo pushed me to do _some_ words even on days when real life came crashing down round my ears. I even managed a couple of thousand words when I was away for a weekend con. I did make a few small discoveries: 1) the NaNo website is great for logging daily wordcount, but pretty useless for gathering buddies and keeping in touch with them, however 2) getting your own email support group and keeping in touch drives you forward. My bunch are all pro and semipro (published) writers – seven of them – and we’ve all been encouraging each other on a frequent basis. It’s not a question of rivalry – even friendly rivalry. It’s more like taking each other’s hands and all running across the finishing line together. Some of us committed to 50k words, others were aiming for a more realistic wordcount of 10k or 20k, but that didn’t matter. Most of us have achieved what we were aiming for. Now, since my novel is not yet complete, I’m aiming for at least another 30k words before Christmas to complete my first draft. Silverwolf if under contract to DAW and is a follow on to Winterwood which comes out in February 2016 and was my NaNo novel of 2008.I’m looking forward to revision. It’s a process I like. But today I have treated myself to six back-to-back episodes of Game of Thrones Season 5, to catch up with what I hadn’t already seen. Yay! Reward!
November 29, 2015 — 6:12 PM
Mozette says:
I had a shit house, crappy month.
it started out great with me throwing up 7,000 words on the first 4 days. then, nothing… after my car was broken into and Mum ended up in hospital with her blood pressure up in the 200’s… i was really not writing.
then, i landed in hospital a day after a family member’s funeral…now, i have been plugging away at my nanowrimo book one-handed since Saturday, and punched out 2,000 words just yesterday!
now, i have only 9,000 words. but the story ain’t finished yet!
And Chuck, i started on ‘Star Wars Aftermath’ yesterday afternoon… got 40 pages in and nearly missed dinner, then read another 20 pages and didn’t want to go to bed. Great book!
November 29, 2015 — 7:38 PM
Kaelyn says:
I learned a lot about committing to my writing this NaNo season, as well as the different keys to motivation.I just finished, approximately five minutes ago and whoa. I did it. I actually did it. My writing speed has definitely improved and I’ve learned to turn off my inner editor, not to let her set up the path to Writer’s Block and Fear That I Am Not Good Enough. NaNo also introduced me to the writing community on Twitter–I’ve made a couple friends and WHOA IT’S NICE TO WRITE WITH OTHER PEOPLE. Sprinter for life, right here. I think I did well–definitely learned time management. Apparently high school won’t let you off with an excused absence for NaNo.
As for the future, I’m going to make a revision promise, finish my novel (still have plenty of plot left to go), and keep writing.
November 29, 2015 — 7:43 PM
Benjamin Gilmer says:
The verdict is still out on whether or not I will finish, but at the moment, I feel pretty good about my chances. It’s been a rough NaNoWriMo; I got sick the first week, my wife and I both had a death in the family, one of which caused us to fly out of state, spending an entire week going nowhere except the hospital and our hotel room, and just the normal routine of taking care of our 8-year-old, 5-year-old, and 9-month-old has been taxing to say the least, but the sat few days we busted our asses and now are on the verge of an unbelievable comeback!
November 29, 2015 — 7:56 PM
Elysabeth Grace says:
I finished and discovered that I can be both pantser and plotter. What a great feeling! I’m better at turning of the critic/editor/perfectionist during NaNo and that is the best thing to happen.
November 29, 2015 — 8:13 PM
Jana Denardo says:
I’ve been doing nano for enough years that I’m not sure I’m learning anything new per se about my writing. It does reinforce however how competitive I can be. Word wars get me through some rough spots. I also enjoy the community aspect of it. I’m driving back out for the last night writing dangerously party even though I’ve technically ‘finished’ (honestly 50K is barely half way in this story) because I enjoy writing with other people and talking to them about writing.
November 29, 2015 — 10:45 PM
Miri says:
NaNoWriMo is the longest continuously-standing institution in my life at this point (this was year 11 for me), but this was the first year in a while, maybe ever, that I felt like I could really see what my book needed, even in the last few crazy days. I am well aware that the pacing in my book (let’s spend 35k dropping the “everyone is vampires” bomb and then OH WAIT THERE ARE TWO BODIES AND A MURDER MYSTERY LEFT TO GO WHOOPS) is quite bad, but I got most of the raw material out there, and made notes of what needed to be fixed later. This is the first year I’ve felt able to be critical of myself and my work in a useful way, without letting it stop me from getting the draft that I had in my head down. It felt like a sort of level-up moment, weird as it that may be.
It got me back to writing regularly and to pushing through the less-pleasant parts, for which I am grateful, and made it clear that I can write a fair amount per day without having to sacrifice absolutely everything else in my life.
It reminded me that I am, in fact, capable of finishing a novel. The last time I did that was back in 2011, before school kicked in, and I’ve needed to know that I can do this.
It provides me with a built-in community of people who kind of “get it.” That’s been invaluable from Year 1 and still is now.
I started this too young to be able to be super objective about it now, but I’m a fan.
November 29, 2015 — 10:48 PM
underastarlitsky says:
This NaNo was the worst since I started 5 years ago. Mainly because I wasn’t planning on doing it, because I didn’t have any idea for a story. Then on day 11, a title came to me. Usually I think of a story’s title as inspiration first and then I come up with a vague idea of the story/concept. Well, I thought the title was awesome enough for the story. Note to self: don’t plan to write 50,000 words just cuz you’ve come up with a cool title on the other hand, I managed to ‘win’ in 19 days, today.
November 29, 2015 — 11:04 PM
msmarianna says:
My main goal of doing NaNo was to write everyday. Two days in, I had new found respect for writers that write everyday. That shit is hard! And I can see how many may suffer “writers block”–or whatever. I’m new at this writing gig, but I’m resolved I’m not an everyday writing writer (which probs means I best not be leaving my day job any time soon). Anywho, I’ve ended with roughly 22,000 words, mostly outline. I’m thrilled. I got to flesh out a new story: non-human planet, its inhabitants, their means to communicate, new pronouns, the conflict(s).
November 29, 2015 — 11:34 PM
gregmulka says:
I can’t write before 11 in the morning. It doesn’t matter how much coffee I ingest. The beginning of the month was the worst. My outline was useless after ten days. I have a new outline to put together and 30k words to go.
Also, when in doubt, look thoughtfully into the distance and say, “Let them fight.”
November 29, 2015 — 11:37 PM
gregmulka says:
I should have said the 30k is to reach the end of the book. I made it through the 50k. First time I’ve managed that.
November 30, 2015 — 8:39 AM
The Peculiarist says:
This was the sixth time I entered NaNoWriMo, and the first year I didn’t get past 50K. And I learned that sometimes you just don’t have time to write as much as you want, and if you push yourself you’re going to hate your writing, hate yourself, hate your life, and start having muscles seize up.
But I did get a good idea of how the book can be structured, some decent scenes, and the overall emotional arc I want to follow, which is a pretty good advance.
So I think NaNoWriMo was helpful. The first few times it’s just good to know that you can write a novel, that you can write that many words that quickly, even if you have to go back and rewrite the book a dozen times to get it right.
November 30, 2015 — 12:33 AM
hccummings says:
I blew past 50K on the 24th and kept going. I’m currently just over 64K and plan on writing more tonight. I’m really close to finishing the novel (I’m a Rebel and continued work on a novel I’d already started. I had 52K-ish when I started NaNoWriMo and am over 115K for the entire manuscript so far). I hope I can finish it tonight. I have a potential paying writing gig with a Jan. deadline and I need to switch over to that ASAP.
I don’t know why this second half of this novel flowed out so easily. Maybe it was the 4 – 6 month break I took in the middle of it (which, in the past, has been a death knell). It has some of my best work and I met new characters I think I could write additional books for.
As for the future? This manuscript is book 3 of a trilogy (book 1 is already out). Book 2 is with an editor, so I’ll need to work on revisions and I have a short story that is awaiting revisions, as well. I expect it will be several months before I work on this again, but I hope to have it published in time for Gen Con in August. Then, next year, I can look into creating a single volume omnibus of the trilogy or maybe publishing all three with a slipcase. That might be a Kickstarter thing since I don’t think PoD vendors do slipcases. Time will tell.
November 30, 2015 — 8:54 AM
David says:
Search “@davidearle #NaNoWriMo” on Twitter if you want my day-by-day. TL;DR: My house was flooded for the second time this year at the start of the month and I didn’t have any plans to actually do NaNoWriMo this year, so not much writing got done. Still more than I would have done without it, but I barely made one day’s worth of words.
November 30, 2015 — 8:54 AM
Tia RAGEFACE MCAVOY (@tiakall) says:
I’m still about 17k from my personal goal, so it’s going to be another day of “do nothing but write” (which I have been doing since Friday.) I’m also on track to beat my all-time Nano high. And the good news is that I finished the drafts for all four books of my main project, plus two short stories!
Bad news: they’re some of the roughest shit I’ve ever put out. Like, there’s some good prose on occasion, but otherwise this is more like a glorified outline that’s still helping me organize this sprawling, multi-book story. But seeing it all there helps me figure out what goes where, who needs more scene time, and also made some connections I hadn’t expected.
Now I’m off to fill the rest of my goal with a fanfic I didn’t finish before October and my backup project (also fanfic). Don’t judge me >_>
November 30, 2015 — 8:56 AM
Travis M. Hicks says:
I wrote a metric shit-ton, as I tend to do. Not on the novel that I’m serious about or the one that I care about (though I banged my head into that wall some and got about 10k on it), but instead on one of the weirder stories that I’ve ever written (which says a lot from me (the ending involves a sharkicane in a mushroom forest on Europa, which has been terraformed by Victorian Space Dragons)).
But I dunno, I think that’s what I needed?
I’ve been pretty shit at DOING THE WRITING THING this year, I think in large part because of fear/pressure (that I was putting on myself, of course), about my book (or even just draft) being “good enough”. Which I know is not the thing that should be on my mind during a first draft, but it is one thing to know and another thing to grok that.
So for me, NaNo was about *just* having fun. The story wasn’t serious, but it let me play and helped remind me of the magic in writing. So I’ll take it.
November 30, 2015 — 9:03 AM
bartstyes says:
I’ve got the rest of the day to get my last 2,000 words in, which won’t be a problem over my lunch break and after work.
And this is the weird thing I learned this year: I used The Walking Dead’s typical season of storylines as a roadmap. Just go with me on this one….
Five major characters. So each of them got around 5,000 words of my attention through to a “midseason finale” in the overall storyline. Then I wrote another 5,000 words for each through to the book’s “finale” scene. Filling those ten 5,000 word buckets once I had a great overall outline and goals/conflicts/obstacles for each of the five character arcs made writing much easier this year. Next up I’ll take those buckets and mush them up into an easier to follow, more fluid read.
I’ve got two books already in the can that need MAJOR rewrites. Thanks to Chuck’s post, “In Which I Critique Your Story (That I Haven’t Read),” I came to my senses before I published them. This one feels much stronger coming out of NaNoWriMo 2015.
November 30, 2015 — 9:07 AM
gluedwithgold says:
This was my first NaNo, and on the heels of a 20 year writing hiatus. I have just 1800 words to go today to reach 50k. I’ve learned a tremendous amount during this month. A few highlights are:
– I am not a novelist (yet). The story I thought would carry me through 50k wrapped itself up nicely at 38k. So, I will have completed two short stories this month. I’m entirely okay with this.
– Turning off my inner critic and just letting the words flow is my biggest hurdle. It’s hard. I’ve made much progress, but still have a way to go.
– There is always time for writing.
– I am a better writer than I think I am.
– The more I write, the more ideas I get. If I’m not writing, my creative brain will wallow languidly in a pool of its own excrement.
– Writing makes me happy.
So, yeah. NaNoWriMo was good for me. I’m proud of myself and no longer feel like a fake when I call myself a writer.
November 30, 2015 — 9:25 AM
boundbeautifunk says:
I learned that I need a second computer. Sharing is hard.
I also learned that getting up at 3am to write before milking is only sustainable for about a week before I get terribly sick.
And fall far behind.
November 30, 2015 — 9:44 AM
Kait Nolan says:
I learned that that whole adage about how if you think you can or you can’t, you’re right is actually true. I’ve said for years I can’t write in the mornings because I don’t get enough sleep as is, and my brain doesn’t come online until hours after I get out of bed. But when DST ended, I kept on getting up at the same time and wrote before doing the morning dog walk and gym trip before work. Turns out I actually CAN write when I’m unconscious. And this is the first year I’ve won NaNo since grad school when I used it to write my Master’s thesis.
I’ve fully embraced Write or Die and discovered that I evidently otherwise spend a LOT of time staring at the blank screen without realizing it.
November 30, 2015 — 11:24 AM
Amanda Hagarty says:
I wish people would stop saying its over. How about some hooting and hollering for those of us who have 5144 words to go. We could really use it!
What I have learned is it’s a bad idea to over do it in the first few weeks and burn yourself out trying to keep up with insane people who have hit 50,000 by the first 10 days.
And I have learned that if I say “I will just watch one episode of Gordon Ramsey yelling at bad hotel owners, and then I will do my words” at 10 in the morning, it will quickly turn into an all day marathon of brain numbing proportions and my words are sunk.
I also learned that my neighbors are completely inhuman creatures incapable of parenting their child and that all day screaming marathons through our thin walls are also brain numbing and a little soul sucking.
I also know–i don’t need to learn it this year–that there is something to be said for finishing. I learned this in previous years. Writing that whole manuscript from beginning to end, and then editing it from beginning to end, teaches you things. It makes you learn what mistakes you can avoid in your first draft so your editing is more editing and less writing a whole new book. And it makes you get comments of shock and awe from your crit group when you submit your first three nano chapters to them and they can’t believe it’s rough draft. And you get comments like “I felt like I was in the hands of an author who really knew her craft” … But then I evitably by the time it is November 30th and the writing fatigue has killed your craft there is no effing way you are going to submit the rest to them without some editing!
November 30, 2015 — 1:35 PM
Josh Neff says:
5, 144 words! YOU CAN DO THIS! GO GET ‘EM!
November 30, 2015 — 2:32 PM
Amanda Hagarty says:
Thanks! Taking a break after the first 1500 to stretch, get more tea, and turn Christmas carols on to tune out the neighbors. Back at it. Unless a meteor strikes my house, I should be able to pull this off.
November 30, 2015 — 4:16 PM
Fred G. Yost says:
You’ve got this! Whooo!
November 30, 2015 — 9:43 PM
Amanda Hagarty says:
Thanks 🙂 I did win by the way!
December 4, 2015 — 12:20 AM
Josh Neff says:
I had planned on writing a NaNoWriMo wrap-up post before you posted this, so here ’tis:
http://www.goblin-cartoons.com/2015/11/30/nanowrimo-2015-the-wrap-up/
November 30, 2015 — 2:33 PM
thomaspierson says:
So, this was my first year participating and I completed (YAY!) but that really isn’t the important thing. See, I write every day; EVERY DAY without fail; but I realized during NaNo that there’s a huge difference between writing and driving the narrative.
My normal method is to write two or three days of narrative, followed by two days of faffing about with histories and backstories and neat descriptions. Then, on Saturday and Sunday I edit because it’s impossible to write something new when the spaz-inator is running around singing the virtues of “hamburger, soda, french fries, WAIT!” So that’s three days of narrative and four days of not much of anything.
During NaNo I had to push the narrative every day. I had to hit those story points and craft those scenes so they went where I needed them to go. it was eye opening, really just how much time I can waste and still write every day. So I’m going to be doing things a bit differently from now on. Probably write the NaNo way and finish the story, then do all the faffing about during the rewrite.
November 30, 2015 — 7:18 PM
ToniJ says:
Well, I didn’t win, but neither do I feel like I lost. I got a decent size chunk of story done, and I used NaNo to push me to write when I was feeling it. I also used it as an excuse to be a social human. But, it’s hard to write while hosting during the holidays, and I’m not sure I really pushed myself any harder than I was beforehand. I love the idea of NaNoWriMo, and it’s what convinced me to even try writing for real, but it might not be useful for me anymore. Lesson learned.
What’s next? More writing! I’ve got a novel to finish.
November 30, 2015 — 8:23 PM
Erin says:
I surprised myself. I pantsed the whole story, but I fell in love with new software (hello, Scrivener, you bedfellow of the scatterbrained), discovered I’m apparently a beast with a keyboard (won many word wars), made a few new acquaintances, and somehow hammered out the roughest of drafts of my very first novel!
I have been a victim of writers block every previous attempt I’ve made. NaNo forced my hand and Scrivener let me hop around to other sections easily, allowing epic word counts flow for days. The pep talks were encouraging the word sprints on twitter helpful and hilarious. Overall, this was a blast. I can’t wait to do it next year!
Now I plan on ignoring that bloody mess for about a month before I edit anything. The eyes must be rested.
December 1, 2015 — 4:14 AM
joshuamneff says:
That’s terrific! Way to go!
December 1, 2015 — 11:07 AM
Tom Erdman says:
I went into this year planning to win, but life happened, as it often does. My entire family got sick for over a week, and my word count just derailed. But I learned three HUGE things:
1. I can write every day. I just need to choose to. Skip Marvel Puzzle Quest and the Last of Us, catch up on episodes of Flash later, let the wife tell me what’s happening on Facebook. It’s not the lack of time, it’s how I’m using it.
2. My family will support me, and not halfway. I finally admitted how important writing was to me, thinking my family would nod sagely, then talk about the weather. Instead, they’ve asked how they can help. My wife gave me a free pass to write on a day off, something that goes against her very nature. She also has it in our schedule for us to workshop every time there’s a fifth Saturday. My sister asked to read my WIPs, and has been asking how it’s going regularly. And my 20 month old daughter? Well, she’s a lot of why I write. 🙂
3. There are other writers. Everywhere. And we’re all rooting for each other. I’m an introvert of the first order, but I also need to be with my people. I’m starting to build a support group that I can be an active member of, and that in itself is awesome.
So all that to say; I’ll see you guys later. I’ve got some writing to do.
December 1, 2015 — 8:07 AM