So how did you all do? Were you glad you entered? If you didn’t enter, are you considering participating next year? I’ll be posting the results of my Holiday Gifts For Writers poll and the random prize draw winners later today or tomorrow a.m.
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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
I had a bereavement in the middle of the month, so the whole Nano thing seemed suddenly unimportant.
And yet I couldn’t somehow stop when I had got so far. And I wrote things I didn’t think I could write and my story went to places I didn’t expect it to go.
And I met up with Nanoers in London – and they are a wonderful, interesting bunch of people.
I’m glad I did it. What about you?
I managed to go absolutely mental in the last 7 days and do 35,000 words to win. I am so glad I did it, one of the greatest feelings ever was that I wrote a novel.
I miss writing everyday already. I’m already thinking up ideas for next year’s novel!
I’m glad I did it. It was my first year reaching 50k and my second year participating.
My story is now messy and riddled with plot holes. But it’s branched out into places I couldn’t have reached without being forced to leave behind the conventions of proper logic and grammar. And my story needed that.
I have not been in a place where I could participate, but I have enjoyed the show. It’s a completely different approach to writing than my usual method. I am not sure if I would be comfortable with it. But it’s been fun to see other people do it.
I’m a fourth year student of NaNo and have “won” each time. However, this year, I walked away with a story I love that has huge potential. Despite its plot holes, it is the most complete NaNoScript to date.
I did not win, but am glad I entered. It was a crazy awful emotional month, while Life dropped painful bombs, but I have a story 18k words in that I am enjoying and intend to finish.
I did great; I won early (around the 21st) and adopted a lazy pace, finishing at 55k. This was my third year; I’ll probably have a new project for 2010.
Unfortunately, I’ve been having trouble writing since. Methinks I need a break.
I made it!
College and some personal problems caused my word count to come to a near standstill in the middle of the month, when I was already way behind, but…
I write 5000 words a day about while I was home over Thanksgiving Break, and then I wrote 10,000 words on the 30th, even with my classes.
I’m still in total awe that I was able to write that much during the last few days and that I actually won…
I reached my NaNoWriMo goal of 150K on the 30th – I was so happy! I plan on doing it again next year, but I think I’ll probably do something that lends it’s self well to being silly.
This was my first year. I managed to hit 50 K sometime after midnight on November 22. Our group was doing an overnight write in and their was a 10k challenge for the night that I hit as well. I finished NaNoWriMo at 65 324, however I am no where near the end. I have began thinking of it as “the story” rather than the novel. When I go to clean it up and hopefully start submitting it I know it will have to be divided at least once for publishable lengths.
Personally I found it easier that I thought it was going to be. But I really let myself go and just wrote. I completely embraced the NaNo vibe of let you inner editor go, and just write. Also I found the word sprints amazingly helpful.
I also followed your comic daily.
I really, really enjoyed the community vibe of NaNoWriMo and miss it already for my writing. I find I can allow myself to slack when all I have to answer to is myself, but in a community environment like NaNoWriMo I do well because I have others to answer too. Also, I am surprisingly competitive in that I want my word count to kick other peoples word counts asses.
Also, those of us from my area are planning on still getting together on Monday nights to write. Hopefully this pans through. I am really excited for next years NaNo, but am also looking forward to a very productive year of writing prior to NaNoWriMo 2010.
I got 15,000 words. I will do better next year! KEEP ON TRUCKIN!!
To quote what I said on http://blog.nanowrimo.org/node/389…(twice, actually, by mistake. Ouch.)
“This was the first time that I did nano (as I turned 13 in June) and I LOVED it. Seriously. It was awesome to find out that I COULD write SO much in so little times–I loved finding my strengths and weaknesses through the commitment of time and words that I had made. It was a blast the whole month–every day gave me something to look forward to. And my novel developed in ways which I could not have foreseen–ways which ARE the way it should have gone.
Overall, it was a great month, and a great time, and I cannot wait to come back next year.
–Hannah
i. e., elvishauthoress”
Yep. ^^
Amazing fun. I’m writing the ending today, so hopefully it’ll get to a first draft stage next year.
I came within a couple hundred words of reaching 71K. Less than last year, but still a win!
I won the previous two years, but this year had a few bombs drop (crisis visits to friends suddenly in the hospital, other stuff). I only got about 8K done. I did find an outlining method that suited me, so I have a completed outline I can turn into a first draft if I decide to in the future. I’ve decided to shelve the story for now, mostly because of the context of the aforementioned hospital visits — some of that was too much like the story I made up for me to be comfortable.
The good news is that I am now working on a new story proposal that has nothing at all to do with my NaNoWriMo, and it’s helping me get my energy levels back!
I can’t remember if this is year 7 or year 8 on the Nano participation, but I would say that this is my most successful one yet. I’ve won several years, but I’ve never actually been able to finish a book. Ditto on that this year. Still, for a change I still like the concept I came up with, and this time I think the discipline I managed to keep with the writing will actually stick.
I’ll cross my fingers…just as soon as I finish doing some more surfing.
I freaking won! Finished on Day 21, but still trying to maintain motivation to finish the whole novel…
It was a hectic NaNo for me. I was ML of my region since my bf was away on his ‘walkabout’ for two months. I took on a second job right at the beginning of the month. That meant I was dealing with little money and a bit of depression from my bf being gone. HOWEVER, I managed to get to 50k and have a great time with the writers in my region.
Now I’m resting a bit (about as much as you can in Dec w/ two jobs) and gearing up for our June writing challenge (WriDaNoJu)
Hi,
This is the first year I did this, and the first time I’ve written any fiction over about twenty pages. It was a squeaker, and not at all finished, and full of little plot holes and big plot holes and other surprises. But now I have something to work on and work with that isn’t drifting nebulously in my head in that “One of these days” place. I am totally shocked that I got that far, wondering how the real world is going to hit back now that it’s over, and I have a huge to do list to work on with this particular project.
I noticed LOTS of teens on the NaNo website. I’m about forty years past that, folks; talk about procrastinators!! This is the best procrastination fighter I’ve ever seen~ let’s hope I can keep some of the momentum.
I won, but I had to write 10k on the last day.
Luckily, I didn’t have school that day.
I managed 50,128 and I’m so relieved it’s over! Now the real work begins – revising and editing.
I’m convinced writing fast is the way to go. I do my best fiction writing under pressure, maybe because I can’t afford to stop and edit myself, which stifles creativity. I’m an agent and now advise the authors I represent to first just get those words down and only then start editing. In other words, NaNoWriMo is the way to go, November or not!
I locked away my inner editor at the beginning of NaNo and enjoyed immensely playing with my story every day. I wrote around 23,000 words and then the need to write something else just took over and I was off on another project. I don’t think I would have had the courage to embrace this new project if I hadn’t been working on NaNo and been experiencing the freedom of working without my editor. It’s become my passion. Will I do NaNo next year? Yes!
I lost a lot of time mostly to school… but in the last 5 days I managed to write about 30,000…. So I feel pretty good about myself.