NaNoWriMo 2011

[scurvygirl]

I forgot to make a post for this year's endeavor. This is my 9th year at it, and it's going much better than last year, for certain.

This year, I decided to do short stories, with the idea that they will be easier to revise and start sending out for publication. It's been going pretty well so far, up to the point where I started inserting all my characters into some bizarro alternate reality where very few of them have so far crossed paths.

Weird stuff!

Anyway, I was at least 10k behind at one point, but I got caught up this weekend, and I'm actually ahead of things right now. I have 5 days off work over the Thanksgiving holiday, and my goal is to cross 50k by Monday night. This is ideal because then I can turn my focus back to the papers I have to finish for my grad classes.

Current word count: 37,125.

[Jen]

Great job. My second year = second year of not finishing. Oh well, there is always next year. Perhaps I should try your short story approach. Then, if I get bored (like I have done the past two years), then I can ditch that story and start again.

Can't wait to read your work.

[Dan]

Yeah, with today being the last day... how'd it go? Did you finish? How do you feel about your work? Tell us more.

[scurvygirl]

Oh thanks for asking. I hadn't thought much about NaNo for the past 3 days because I've been working on school-related things.

I crossed the finish line on Sunday night, with 50,063 words. I wrote my last 2800+ words to get there by forcing myself to listen to the same song repeatedly. I polled FB and after a bunch of songs I simply didn't have, someone suggested something by The Romantics that I didn't have. But I did have "What I Like About You." 37 listens IN A ROW later, and I was across the finish line.

But I wasn't quite done.

I like to have a buffer of at least 1k, so there was our final write-in scheduled at HD Beans in Silverton, so I went to that, and wrote another 1400 words.

After validating, it was about 100 or so words less than what my software said, but it clocked me officially in at 51,475.

Yay! 9 years, 8 wins! Looking forward to my 10th anniversary NaNoWriMo and wondering what crazy things I will decide to write then!

[scurvygirl]

Great job. My second year = second year of not finishing. Oh well, there is always next year. Perhaps I should try your short story approach. Then, if I get bored (like I have done the past two years), then I can ditch that story and start again.

Can't wait to read your work.

For a lot of people, the 3rd time is the charm. Definitely try the short story thing. You can abandon a story if it's going badly and just start writing something else. Then you can revise it later if you want to come back to it during NaNo, or wait til afterwards. It was much easier than working on a novel. Looking forward to editing these stories. I wrote some really crazy things. For example: I had a day where I couldn't stop myself from writing in rhyming couplets. It was SO annoying. But then I just started having fun with it. It was silly and allowed me to relax and simply enjoy myself.

[Jen]

Great job. My second year = second year of not finishing. Oh well, there is always next year. Perhaps I should try your short story approach. Then, if I get bored (like I have done the past two years), then I can ditch that story and start again.

Can't wait to read your work.

For a lot of people, the 3rd time is the charm. Definitely try the short story thing. You can abandon a story if it's going badly and just start writing something else. Then you can revise it later if you want to come back to it during NaNo, or wait til afterwards. It was much easier than working on a novel. Looking forward to editing these stories. I wrote some really crazy things. For example: I had a day where I couldn't stop myself from writing in rhyming couplets. It was SO annoying. But then I just started having fun with it. It was silly and allowed me to relax and simply enjoy myself.

Good to know and thanks for the tip. Rhyming couplets sound fun actually though I can see how if you didn't want to write them, it would be annoying.

[va_vacious]

Yay! Congrats on finishing!