NaNoWriMo is over. Did I win? You tell me

Wow! Here it is December 1 which means National Novel Writing Month has just ended for another year. After this month I believe myself – even more – to be a writer. Why?

The goal for the challenge is 50,000 words in the month of November. My personal goal was to finish my novel – the novel I have written only during NaNoWriMo. I started it in 2010, added to it in 2011, and planned to finish it this time. (You can check my progress, if you are interested, through each one of my pages called NaNoWriMo Updates 2010, 2011, 2012)

I have an accumulated word total of over 123,000 words through those three Novembers, every word written by hand. No editing has been done yet so there are whole sections which will be taken out or changed or added to in some way. Someday.

The cold truth is … I did not make the 50K mark. I tried hard to do it. My hand is so sore and was getting cramped by the time the clock reached 11:59 and I had to stop writing to post my final word count — of 41487 — before the stroke of midnight. (I managed to write 9750 words today.) Once midnight arrived the clock stopped in the NaNoWriMo stats chart. It now reads: Event Finished, where all through the month it had shown the number of words written that day, which day it was in the event, and how many writing days were remaining in the challenge.

polilla-lynn stats

Another thing is that my first goal was to finish my novel this time, second was to reach 50K. I did neither, although I wrote 82% of the 50K, and I am so close to the end of this story.

polilla-lynn,wc,pc,days

Am I disappointed? A little. I believe that if I had been able to ignore things, such as normal life stuff and responsibilities (although I tried to), I could have finished this novel.  😉  Now maybe I can cook a decent meal for my dear husband, although I usually don’t have writing to blame for my not-so-great results in the kitchen. Oh, and my internet connection dropped today, so the repairman came by to fix that for me. It is working fine now, yay!, but that was another time stealer – although I am not complaining about that. I am truly grateful for my Internet service.

The worst culprit for stealing time is ME, though. The times I could have been writing, but other things took priority; the times I had nothing coming to me at all; the times I just didn’t feel like writing. So now I still have an unfinished novel. But you know, that is okay too, because I can work away at it at my own pace now without a clock. That might not work in my favour, but that is something I will have to find out.

As I said at the beginning, now I believe myself to be a writer even more than I did before. One big reason is because when I am writing in the NaNo challenge the story practically tells itself to me. Sometimes things I write I wonder about, but later it all ties together; it makes sense as I go along. I find it to be an amazing process. And I enjoy it!

Thank you for your interest in following along as I attempted the National Novel Writing Month challenge again. I appreciate your support.

NaNoWriMo is over. Did I win? You tell me.  🙂

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  🙂

 

 

 

 

 

12 thoughts on “NaNoWriMo is over. Did I win? You tell me”

  1. It is only ten o’clock here so I figure you have 2 more hours! I truly believe you have won. You did very well in my books. Now you have something to work with and polish. The end, for me, is always the hardest and takes a while to put down on paper. It usually comes as I revise actually. Good luck with this project my friend.

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    1. Darlene, I wish it worked that way. The NaNo Stats counter goes by time zones, so my midnight comes much earlier than yours. Once it hit 12:00 it flicked over to Event Finished making it impossible to add any more words to my tally – so I quit, wrote this post and went to bed, very tired.
      Perhaps I should keep writing this month to bring my story to a satisfactory end since I definitely don’t need another 50K to finish it during the next NaNo.

      Thank you for your vote for me. 🙂 I consider it a win, too, actually. Not the 50K win, but I got a lot farther into my story and can see the end in sight now. Yay!

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  3. When was the last time you wrote 42,000 words in a month? Probably last nanowrimo, right? So did you win, you bet you did! That is a lot of words and to be written by hand, yikes! I wouldn’t even want to count them by hand. Will you try the handy ole computer or does it cramp your writing style? I use to think I only liked writing first drafts long hand, then I had to try to type them into the computer and let’s just say, my handwriting can get difficult to read after a couple of pages. If you could do that well by hand, you could totally knock it out of the park using a keyboard.
    Congratulations on sticking with your project and accomplishing so much.

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    1. Hi Renee,
      In answer to your question, the last time I wrote 42,000 words was for NaNo 2010. In 2011 I finished at 32,000, but even so … a lot of words.
      Writing by hand meant I was not stuck in front of a computer when it was not convenient to be there. But yes, I will have to type it all over and that is going to be a huge challenge. I find having it all on paper is easier to manage, but perhaps if it were my habit to write a first draft on computer that would seem to be the easier way.
      Thanks for your kind words, and congratulations to you for your magnificent NaNo win of over 54,000 words!

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  6. I’m very proud of how much you accomplished especially with the challenges you are facing. Perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m heading your way to see Cindy. 🙂 I’ll be watching for you..

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I look forward to reading your greatly appreciated comments. Thanks for making my day! :)

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