The first of December is here, across the country and around the world thousands of writers breathe a sigh of relief. The 2012 National Novel Writing Month event has finished.
The collective word count for this year is over three and a quarter billion. Yes I said Billion. 3,288,976,325 to be exact. That is a lot of words.
Throughout the month each of us has tried our hardest to reach that goal of 50,000 words of new content. Many are cheering themselves as they look at that purple status bar of a winner. Others are feeling sad they didn’t make it, or focusing on what did come out of the event for them.
As you can see by my participant icon above, I did not reach the 50k by midnight. I wrote down to the wire but I just didn’t have enough time in the day to complete that last 10k. Still at 7,161 for the day bringing my finish to over 47k I have to say I am happy with my results.
Here is what I took away from the month content wise:
- Several short stories of various length
- A good start to two novels.
- The skeleton of a novella or two.
- A new chapter for one of my 2011 NaNo works.
- A few story concepts that will hopefully grow into full works with time
- Many blog posts, both for here and other sites.
I also learned a lot about myself:
- I do have what it takes to take on a challenge and see it through to the end, win or lose. (unlike last year)
- Support from your family and friends can be key (thanks again Sally, you too girls)
- I can manage (for me) impressive amounts of writing in a day. I’m still not really sure how I managed 7k in that last few hours, but there it is.
- I can write (almost) anywhere.
- Timed sprints are my friend.
- Once my rhythm is broken, it is really really hard to get it back (knew this from work actually)
So now I will take a few days off before I really work on anything much. Just some reading, maybe some writing if I really feel motivated.
I hope that this year’s NaNo has been a good experience all around.
Related articles
- Day 30: Is November over already? (orestn.wordpress.com)
- What Comes After NaNoWriMo? (fulltimewritermom.com)
- Day 30 of NaNoWriMo (clairevioletthropeexpress.wordpress.com)
- What I learned from NaNoWriMo 2012 (emhouston.com)
- After NaNoWrimo – Editing Part 1 (the-view-outside.com)
Laith's Ramblings 
Hi Laith, thanks for linking to my post. Like you, I find it hard to get back once my rhythm breaks. I like how you used your NaNoWriMo to develop several projects (or starts for projects). I focused on just one project and when I got stuck my word count halted. I’ll keep your example in mind next year and allow myself to write anything that comes. Maybe if I include my journal writing, I’ll write my biography!
Last year I started with a specific story in mind. It went all tangent on me and resulted in several short stories and novella length works that all interrelated and operated in the same story world.
I do NaNoWriMo under the 50k of new content, rather than of one novel. If nothing else modern novels really need to be more than 50k in all reality.
For me, the Orson Scott Card novel Ender in Exile reads as several (lengthy) short stories set in the same universe that are related to each other and to the Ender series as a whole. So if a professional writer can do it then why not us too!
True, also a number of other authors wrote short stories that later were included into or expanded into a novel length work. Anne McCaffrey comes to mind as an example.
Oh and if I remember right Asimov’s Foundation was originally a series of serialized somewhat connect shorts not a novel.
Not to say I’m on a par with any of them… 🙂
You mean, not yet. 🙂
🙂
Congrats on winning! Support is important, eh? As much as it was a hectic run at the end, looking back the experience was really fun. I probably will go back next year for a 3rd run 🙂
How about you?
Yeah, I’m planning on doing it again next November. It is a lot of fun.
My eldest is interested in doing the kids version next year along with me.
I might do a ‘CampNaNo’ next summer too.
Wow! Thats awesome! Can’t wait to see what you have to say about it. Sounds like a great family activity too.
Yeah there are a few kids in the local crowd who write along with their parents. on timed writings when the adults are getting 5-800 they chime in with their 80-90.
I would have been like 20words in that time at their ages.