If you could not validate for technical reasons [Updated 1.22.11]

Have no fear! We won't leave you behind. We understand that sometimes, the internet burps, a dragon lands on your house, or your mother grounds you and you can't use the computer. So if you wrote your 50k in November, we can help! If you do NOT show a purple winner bar in your profile and you don't have "Collect Winner Goodies" in your My NaNoWriMo menu, then you are not registered as a winner.

As the special offer codes have been distributed, if you have not been validated as a winner, we can no longer guarantee that you'll be able to receive your special offer codes. We can still validate you as a winner to receive your purple bar and downloadable winner's goodies, though.

What you'll need to do is contact me privately. You'll send me a copy of your novel (NOT via nanomail) through email, scrambled if you prefer so I can't read it.

What we'll need to do to verify you is send a scrambled copy (this is an optional step and is not required, but suggested if you're concerned about the security of your novel) of your novel to me along with the account name at heather_dudley@nanowrimo.org. I can then manually count your words and validate you as a winner. If you do NOT include your account name, I will be unable to process your request, so please don't forget this.

The BEST file type to send is plain text; I can open other types, but this is the fastest, easiest format, and less likely to result in word count weirdness.

Please allow 24-48 hours for the processing of your request because there may be many people who need help with this. :)

[Update: 1.22.11] Unstickying this thread. Late validation is still open for winner status/downloadable goodies.

Help me! It won't let me validate. I am so panicking right now. Helphelphelphelphelp!

It won't let me validate too... do I have to leave my current region where its already 1 dec now? :S

time zone Amsterdam still has half an hour to go as of now... you could try changing too that in user settings.

I was panicking for a moment too :P

AAAAACCCKKKKKK!!!!! I handwrite. I have made a Lorem Ipsum file but can't paste it in . . . What am I doing wrong?? ANY advice would be appreciated!! Thank you!!

Part of mine was partially handwritten, so I tried to use Lorem Ipsum, but it got all screwy and kept showing the wrong word count. Now it's too late :( What should I do?

I'm having problems with the validator also. My word processor (OpenOffice) counted it as 50200+ word count and yet my validator only counted it as 49000+ only. What did I do wrong? :(

I went on about 8 p.m. last night and the option to validate was not available. I couldn't find the spot to do it anywhere. The instructions said that sometimes it's "grayed out" during times of high traffic, but will it come back? Or is it too late. If I had known that would happen I would've validated it 5 days ago. Seriously. What is that.

I don't have internet access at home, and use the public library- but there was a 24hour public strike yesterday and it was closed! Have emailed you my manuscript now, thanks!

I went on last night to validate my novel because I had forgotten to do that three days ago when I actually finished it, and it said that it was validated but now it's not showing it at all and I'm no labeled a winner even though I have almost 80,000 words. What do I do?

I don't know why mine didn't validate. I updated my word count to 50002 two days ago and pasted in my word count. What else was I supposed to do?

I'm wondering if mine didn't validate. I did the process a few days before the end of the month, yet now my bar is still blue. Is there any way you can verify that it worked?

Thanks!

Thanks for answering so quickly! I'll send out the email then. :-)

Why are we forced to validate before the deadline now? I used to do it a few days later when I'd had time to compile all the many files. Validating is a several hour task in itself. Thanks for the first post though, I will get mine sent tomorrow.

I got several times yesterday, and was even on at Midnight last night, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to validate my word count, and then all my information besides my account name at the top was all gone. It was as though I didn't even participate, I can't get to any dashboard, or anything, it just goes to the sites main page when I click on it. I sent an email, with an attached docx file to show my word count, but I wanted to make sure there was proof on the sight somewhere that I was having issues, and that everything I had done for the last week just disappeared.

Thanks
Kirsten V.

I emailed mine to you about 30 minutes ago (it's now 10:34et) because thanks to the weather yesterday, I had no internet! grrrrrrrrr

Thank you for this. After trying for a few years, I finally made it. :o)

I validated my novel early in the month right after I hit 50k (around Nov. 15th). I failed to validate again after that and now I don't have the winner bar or page, though my count shows at past 50k. Did I mess up by not validating again yesterday? Do I need to follow the procedure above and email my scrambled copy to you?

I was frustrated too much as I failed to validate my novel due to internet problem. Never opened the nanowrimo mail after that thinking it is no use. Suddenly now when I just opened the site I saw your mail now. can i send my write up now or is it too late?

What if I just didn't have internet at the time?? The internet in my neighborhood gets all screwy sometimes so I had no access...

Tks so much. I appreciate your immediate response. I have sent it to you. All my family members and the Nano mails encouraged me a lot to do it to the last. tks to everyone who are behind this great project.