NaNoWriMo Triumphs and Tragedies

[Philip Overby]

Well, here in Japan November 30th is closing in on me. Yet I finished on November 29th. Hitting the 50,000 words that is. I still have a VERY unfinished novel sitting in front of me, that's daring me to go another 30 or 40 thousand with. I think a good 80-90 thousand word novel would really make my life so much better, even if it is a first draft. And oh, how flawed it is. But it's sort of like that diamond analogy. If I clean it up well enough, maybe someone will like it!

In any case, I wanted this thread to be sort of a "stories from the trenches" sort of thread. What helped motivate you to finish? What tricks did you use that helped you reach the goal? What caused you to not reach your goal? Will you try again next year? Did your inner editor plague you to the ends of the earth?

In my case I found this:

Good:
1. I found out if I set aside about an hour or two after work each day, I can do this. Steadily. As in being part of my daily schedule. As most writers will say "writers write." That means writing. Everyday. Even if it sucks. I managed to do this despite working a normal 40 hour a week job. Granted I don't have kids and I have an understanding wife, so that helped me out a lot. But I did it, even doing regular, everyday stuff. I spend 10 minutes less watching TV, 30 minutes less surfing the internet, and an hour less playing video games or other such stuff, and I still have time to write.
2. I have a pretty decent first draft developing. That's good.
3. And it's kept me interested throughout. Didn't really have to slog through this one.

Bad:
1. I am easily distracted. I could probably have written 80,000 words in a month if I would stop getting distracted so easily.
2. I am a victim of "New Shiny Project Disease." Millions of writers suffer from this. And this could be why millions aren't published. I have fought off the disease for this month and I'm happy for that. I am determined to finish this book come hell or high water.
3. I have lots of loose ends and editing I have to tie up. Just searching my manuscript randomly, I had over 50 instances of someone "gasping." Ugh. I even had a character I introduced at one point with some heavy handed foreshadowing and then he just disappeared never to be mentioned or seen again. Huh? That's not good.

Anyway, I had a blast this year as always. Share your good (or horror) stories here! I'd love to hear them!

 

[Kelise]

Good:
One: Despite how ill I am, I managed to hit 50,000 words once again as I have every year since 2004. For a lot of the month I thought I wouldn't be able to finish, which upset me a lot more than I thought it would. Yet somehow I managed it, and the sense of relief was akin to that of your final exams for high school being over. It was that much of a huge deal for me.
Two: I wrote something for my partner. AND he enjoyed it - sometimes he doesn't like my writing. It was also fun to write, for the most part.
Three: I'm one of the municipal liaisons for Australia (I look after 'Elsewhere', so I get everyone who's not covered by an actual local group) and I was pretty busy in the Rules/Suggestions/Tech Help area (posting under the username of Keladryie) and... I didn't get any complaints. In fact, this year, all I got was notes of people being thankful for what I did, which was quite a nice surprise.

Bad:
One: I shouldn't have done NaNo this year. I'm now sicker, and I shouldn't have done this to myself. I'm working half-days at work and I should have rested and stressed less so I can get better enough to go back to full time.
Two: I wasn't as active in my roles as I could have/should have been. Yes, I'm aware this contradicts my first bad note.
Three: My novel didn't really further my writing skills. It was just a slapdash nice thing for my partner - which is good - but I dream of someday writing something I think has promise which is ALSO enjoyable for him.

 

[JCFarnham]

I finished yesterday, well ahead of where I thought I would be. I mean, considering I thought I would only manage 30,000 and give up I'm very proud of myself for stick to it and getting 50,131 (hey, just realised that 6 more words than I noted down... awesome!)

I haven't reflected on the month yet, in fact I've been wanting to hit the ground running so to speak and just continue working of various projects as if it was still Nano, but one trick that I did use extensively was trigger words. I found one of the internets many grids of numbered words and used random.org to generate a random number. Easy as that. Then tried to incorporate that word, or phrase into the writing. Worked very well for me on the "Off" days.

Aside from that, I didn't really think about what I was doing, I just got on with it regardless of the outcome.

 

[Amanita]

Good:
1) Finally managed to write a good chunk of the story I've been wanting to write but didn't really start for ages.
2) Got myself back into writing-mode and hopefully will be able to continue this way after november.

Bad:
1)Didn't reach 50 000 words. Why not? Often too tired in the evening and suffering from a lack of motivation. (Or maybe I will, still got one and a half day after all. No, don't think so.)
2) Didn't get myself into interesting discussions on the NaNo-side at all. And plenty of highly annoying threads about political correctness and people who try to tell me (and everyone else), what kind of people I should or shouldn't write about. Besides that, the new side as severely lacking.

All in all I do think it was worthwhile again, but I wasn't nearly as enthusiastic as last time. Doesn't habe to be bad, my story from last year never got anywhere.

 

[JCFarnham]

Besides that, the new side as severely lacking.

Didn't even bother to get customisation or signatures working.. just wait, they'll get them up after november...

 

[Shadoe]

I learned a lot.

I learned that preparation makes all the difference. On my last story, I took almost a year to write it, then after 11.5 months, I realized it was going nowhere and I had to reorganize. This one, I started on in August with a single line. I did the 50,000 words and will probably write another couple thousand by the end of the story. It should be done by the end of the month.

I found that I can easily write a couple thousand words a day. Even working 14 hours a day. I've never really counted the words before, so that's pretty cool.

I also learned that turning off my inner editor really, really ticks me off. I like to go back and fiddle.

For the most part, I enjoyed it. I'm going to start prepping the next one in a month or so, and do it again. I hope this time I don't have a father-in-law dying, a time-sapping job, or a couple lost weekends travelling. (It's really sad when you start thinking, "Gee, I hope I'm unemployed next year...")

 

[Amanita]

I wanted to write "is" not "as" of course.

Didn't even bother to get customisation or signatures working.. just wait, they'll get them up after november...

Yes. Especially the lack of customisation was really annoying. I always had to scroll through countless useless forums to get to my home region at the bottom of the page and fantasy was a long way down as well. I absolutely don't get why this new system had to be applied two weeks before november starts and not at some time in between. And edit-option would have been useful as well.

 

[JCFarnham]

I wanted to write "is" not "as" of course.

Yes. Especially the lack of customisation was really annoying. I always had to scroll through countless useless forums to get to my home region at the bottom of the page and fantasy was a long way down as well. I absolutely don't get why this new system had to be applied two weeks before november starts and not at some time in between. And edit-option would have been useful as well.

I strong suggested in the feedback forum that they impliment one. I got some BS about over worked staff and "working on it" and "implimentation of newer, better server [stuff]". Clearly they really couldn't be bothered, either that or they are so against editing they think it should extend to no editing on forums, blah. I wish this was sorted about before camp nano, that would have been the perfect time ... and I'm not even sure that voluntary staff is a good enough excuse, if anything that should mean they have pride in their task as a "good for the community" type thing, but noo...

And I'm going to stop there before I derail the thread haha with more ranting. Safe to say, I don't know if anyone it entirely happy with the site this year.

I guess that's a tragedy in itself huh.

 

[Kelise]

NaNo needed a new site because it wouldn't have coped with 200,000 people. They set it up with Camp NaNo so they could see how the server handling issue would go (as they're now on Ruby instead offf... oh I forget already what it was called. It was bad, though) then made a beta version of the NaNo site with a few thousand beta testers and worked on fixing things until just before NaNo.

Sooo they didn't do it beforehand, because of camp. And they did do beta testing, but probably for too long. THough you guys wouldn't believe how much of the site didn't work when the beta testing first started.

The real issue is the tech guys aren't interested in NaNo - they were hired for their tech knowledge and that's about it, so they didn't know what's important to us as NaNoers.

Rest assured, the staff are just as annoyed about this. They're the ones who have to use the site as well (and they're held back by the tech issues like we are) and have to see everyone miserable about it. They pass the details onto the tech guys, who prioritise in their own way. There's issues with seeing the purple winner bars if you're on IE and they probably don't care. They wouldn't understand how important that is to us, so it probably won't be fixed this season.

So yes, very disappointing. Just wanted to say it's the tech guys and not the general OLL staff who are just as disappointed and annoyed as we are. I'm guessing the tech guys will be let go.

 

[Philip Overby]

To be honest, I didn't even use the forums this time. I was an extensive forum follower and poster in previous years, but this year I was like "Well, I don't really care about mating rituals of Icelandic werewolves" so I just ignored the forum this year. So I didn't notice any glaring errors. I was a bit annoyed I couldn't have a signature, because I sort of liked that aspect. But being that I didn't post at all, it wasn't that big of a deal.

I think this year I was more interested in what everyone here at Mythic Scribes was doing. It was cool to see people post their word counts and talk about various things that happened to them.

I think the "spirit" of NaNoWriMo is a bigger thing for me than the actualy website now. Though I think it's still a valuable resource for others.

 

[Hëradïn]

I had a lot of fun with this.
good:
1. random stuff I added in one scene carried over quite nicely and even made more scenes for me to write later on. hooray for plot expansion!
2. 2k per day is not at all hard to do, whereas before I thought it was daunting.
3. I really enjoy how the story progressed, but I did feel like I was rushing some areas, though that is something to fix in december.
bad:
1. I don't think I did a good job of describing things like when Usagïl first enters Së and heads to the mountains to meet with his aunt I literally wrote "TALK MORE ABOUT WHAT SË IS LIKE" right after he left the fire fields then it skipped to right when he was in front the palace.
2. though easy to do, getting 2k per day requires that I actually apply myself, which sometimes I don't feel like doing.

next year I will do nano again.

 

[Stranger]

Good:
-50,000 words! It was certainly a struggle. Some days I would sit in front of my laptop, trying to come up with one word, any word really, and it was like I forgot all of them except "suddenly" and "pandemonium".
-It was the first time I created detailed plot outlines, character profiles, maps, and other stuff. It really helps to be organised before NaNo starts.
-I came up with some good scenes and dialogue. Or at least I think I did.

Bad:
-It's a huge mess. I think there's a random paragraph somewhere about epic war between ducks and sentient turnips? Uhhh.
-It will take forever to edit.
-I also plan to illustrate the whole thing and that's really daunting.

I'll definitely try to participate in NaNo again next year if stupid life doesn't get in the way.

 

[myrddin173]

Good
1. I wrote about 13K words that didn't exist before.
2. Even though I didn't win, I am not a failure.
3. It's fun and I'm definitely doing this next year.

Bad
1. Doing the entire thing by hand is... okay for the first week or so, then I feel like chopping my wrist off (not my hand, just the wrist - if someone can tell me how to do that, thank you)
2. I bet half of those words are adverbs...

 

[LadyPamela]

Good:
- I won (5th year running!)
-I love my story this year, so will be working on it more in the coming months.
-the site was better able to handle the crowds.

Bad:
-Even though this is my fifth Nano, this one is still a mess! Not as bad as some years, I am more organized than in previous years, but I still need to work out a better system for post-nano revision.
-My story ended sooner than I thought, so I really have to expand it. Which is fine, but unexpected.
-Obviously the site issues. And negative people letting loose on the forums.

 

[Leif GS Notae]

Hmmm, even though I am new here and joined after NaNo was finished, I guess I can share my NaNo experience this year.

Good:
- Finished 50K words in three days (with half of that done on Nov. 1st)
- Timed "sprint" method works well according to my results
- Gave me a chance to really hone the world I am working on and use it to write more on my blog

Bad:
- Sore spacebar thumb
- I was never quite the same when I finished it, I had that burning desire to escape the cube farm more
- With so many layers (projected 160K), it will take a while to edit and weave how I want

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Good:
- Another win, that's four in a row.
- I proved, yet again, that I can write insane quantities of text in a single 24 hour period.
- I got to experiment with a new form (writing a longer story broken into chunks to serialize).

Bad:
- I was working on another project for the first part of the month, and ended up hitting the morning of the 28th with 6000 words done on NaNo. Which meant 44k words in three days. Which I did, barely, finishing 24k during the last day. Suffering burnout as a result, which is stalling other writing I need to be doing. (sigh)
- My episodic fiction didn't work quite right. I love the opening - first few thousand words. And I really like the ending. And the entire 30k or so words in the middle have to go. The general premise might be great for another episode, if I add a BUCKETLOAD of additional problems and tension/conflict. But it's not enough right now to carry the quantity of story I wrote. So instead of ending the month with 2.5 episodes done, I think I will have one 20k word episode complete once I do a fairly substantial (much more than my usual) revision. Needs some real slash and burn, which I don't usually have to do - but this WAS something new, so I guess I should have expected some early issues.

 

[RunestoneCowboy]

Okay. So here goes:

Good:
I won. For the first time since 2005.
I'm co-ML for next year in my region (!!!!!)
I made friends with a lady who does Ayurvedic medicine.
I've set a realistic goal of being done with my novel by June/July.
I'm still writing and not sick of it yet.

Bad:
All 50,000+ words I wrote are trash and I'm rewriting everything.
I formed some habits during NaNo that i can't break (Pulling all-nighters every weekend, intentionally taking my ADD meds at 6 PM so I can write all night etc)
My partner is sick of hearing me talk about NaNo.

 

[virtualmayham]

Ahh, I came close last year, around 45,000 words, just wasn't able to hit 50k, but it was my first year. Gonna try again!