Continuing next year?

So, anecdotes, yes? :D

A few days ago, I went to save my story onto my flash drive. The computer would not recognize. It would not let me get onto my emails for some unholy reason. Seriously, I tried to get onto all five. So, with this sick feeling, I said, "I'll just put it on tomorrow!" I get home with yet another sick feeling, turn on my computer, turn around to feed my leopard gecko, and look back to see the blue screen of effing death. I sent 19000 words to my gmail weeks before, looking about 10,000 plus the words I still have yet to type. So, probably about 20,000. I'm not even going to bother; I've lost all motivation, can't even think about my story or how unsympathetic my friends are about it without crying.

Now, here's the question.

If I get my motivation up, can I start again next year? But, picking up where I left off with a completely new 50,000 words?

Technically, no - by the rules, you'd need to start a new story. You could start from the beginning of this year's novel (without referring to or including any of this year's writing), but starting in the middle of this year's would technically be against the rules.

On the other hand, I'm sure the Rebels forum would happily welcome you!

There's nothing to say that you have to wait until Nano comes again to finish this novel. After all, there are 11 other months besides Nano where you can write. So, you can make it a goal to finish that novel before the next Nano starts (And there's Camp Nano in the summer, so maybe that will help with your motivation, :) )

Haha, if we manage to get my story back, I think I'll still continue it. x3 The shock of, 'My story...is gone...GONE!' finally wore off. I'm plotting stuff for next year already, because I get bored during class. My current novel I've got all planned out and just need to type, so, -shrug- Thanks for the help, guys. xDD

And rebels, ftw!

Apropos camp Nano., how probably it is that we have one next summer also?

I was not prepared last summer and ended up jumping into it around the second week of August, rebelling by doing revision work. And noted that it was an excellent idea - using it to boost meself (sailing the rebel ship...) to work on all that half-finished stuff. Might do it again - not even aiming at winning but having the boost and companionship and new life in the forums.

Sequels are allowed, right? So just call it that and you're okay ;) Though being a rebel is fun too.

Shouldn't camps be during summer, normally? ;-)

Of course there are winter camps too, but they tend to be shorter.

(says an old girl scout)

There is a clause listed on the NaNo Wiki, or was it WikiWrimo??? that says if you have won a normal NaNo once you have proven your worthiness and can opt to work on unfinished stories for subsequent NaNos. Not an official rule, but it made sense to me. Zotokou or Zokotou Clause. Something like that.

I did exactly that last year. I wrote a whole new 50,000 words to finish my 2009 NaNovel. I did count myself as a rebel however.

BenPanced: That going to jail for three consecutive doubles in Monopol is in the printed version of out package of Monopol! ;-)

For that house rule i would comment that I would not recommend rebelling by continuing a WIP or editing for the first year - there are reasons why these two are listed as "outside of rules". Or choosing a kind of rebellion that makes it hard to count how many words you have actually written during November.

(rebelling by writing short stories or something that is not fiction would not give you a wrong idea of Nano, on the other hand, I'd think)