I have fought my way to the castle beyond the Goblin City, for my will is as strong as yours, my fingers as tired....
I DID IT!
But I gotta say, I'm sorry for bailing on you guys right before this whole shebang, well banged. Between dead cars and multiple hospitalizations, I ended up not being able to participate as much as I would have liked. However, I did use my bed rest to crank out nearly 80K words of dreck. I hope there's something good in there for me, though. I'll start mining it in February.
Feel free to make to post your success stories here!
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@~,'~~
73,804 / 50,000
Nov 29, 2007 - 22 33
I felt like an over achiever until I gazed upon your impressive total. I must admit, I'm nowhere near being done with my story, but it feels really good to have written as much of it as I have in such a short period of time. I like it so far, at parts it feels as comfortable as lying in my own bed and then only pages away it's more jarring than being rear ended while in a parked car. It's something of a thrill ride for an author to write freely with nothing but emotions as a guide, but it's taxing as well. I sometimes feel like what I wrote is as overblown and pretentious as the idea for it sounded, but in the end that wont be my decision. After all, I'm only the one writing the damn thing.
Congratulations to everyone. Even if you didn't finish, you still won. Wiritng is supposed to be it's own reward, or something to that effect.
50,358 / 50,000
Nov 29, 2007 - 23 24
Y'all probably already know about this, but ... I just found out there's a NaNoEdMo -- Editing Month! March! Too soon to sign up yet, and there/then the goal is to put in 50 hours of editing in the month. I barely made the 50K, and I'm sure it needs more than 50 hours' editing, so I've got a note on my calendar for that, too.
Mine was a novel I'd wanted to write for some time, and just never found the right approach -- and NaNoWriMo sort of plunged me into the deep end of the pool, so I had to sink or, um, write. I'm lucky to have a few days during the week when I can devote 8+ hours to writing without interruption (except when nature calls me to pee breaks and lunch), and there were times on a couple of those days when I had to go walk the dog just to remind myself that I was not personally living the story I was writing. What a luxury to get that far into it -- whether the writing is good or bad, it's wonderful to be so fully immersed.
I wish I'd been able to get to any of the Write-Ins, and the TGIO party, but my schedule just wouldn't/won't cooperate. I'll hope for better timing next year, for sure. I'm already making mental outlines of the novel I want to write next November!
Congrats to everybody -- how many zillions of people are there out there who ~mean~ to write a novel, are ~going to~ write a novel, who ~could~ write a novel, and just never get around to it, or start and let it go .... Everybody doing NaNoWriMo is a total winner just for making the commitment and staying with it. Good for all of us, and those who haven't finished yet, just keep writing, up through November 35th or however long it takes!
Blessings,
Ashleen
55,499 / 50,000
Nov 30, 2007 - 08 56
I'll borrow my quote from Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Christmas Eve and Other Stories":
And so with his story over
And our bottle nearly through
I asked, "did this really happen? "
He swore every word was true
Then he said "I see you're puzzled
For your mind tells you to doubt me
That my story can't be true
But your heart tells you, it might be "
He then asked, did it entertain me
And I admitted it had charm
Then he said "perhaps you have learned something
Or at worst I've done no harm "
Now, it's just going to be a matter of deciding which excerpt to read at the TGIO Party tomorrow night.
74,844 / 50,000
Nov 30, 2007 - 12 35
It's always so hard to pick an excerpt. I'm not sure if any of my Nano is any good at all! But that's what I get for a 7-day finish.
I'm VERY glad I finished when I did, though, because equipment failure very soon after that put a lot of kinks in my writing time. I'll definitely need a new laptop for next year. Still, even then I managed to get 70k+ done (and we'll see what I get done today >D) in the month, though I'm admittedly counting some things I worked on that I HAD to work on (ie, the chapter that I owe my crit group by December 5).
The great thing about this Nano is I feel like I finally really found my writing groove that I lost temporarily after a bunch of health problems last year and early this year. Now I think I can comfortably do 20k or so a month. :3