this one is targeted for past nanowrimers, and those who might be interested in statistics.
i imagine there are at least two strong predictors for determining who out of all participants will complete the 50,000 words: consistency in time allocation towards writing and an adherence to a certain threshold of daily word counts.
do you think there might be a magical word count that once writers hit is a strong indicator for that person's likelihood of successfully putting together the 50,000 words? for example, it might be that for a totally new writer the difference between 30,000 and 50,000 words is incrementally smaller than the first 30,000, thereby making the writer's initial goal of 30,000 therefore more significant (and, it goes without saying, a bigger pain in the butt to do than the last 20,000). basically, i wonder where most people lost it.
or do you think that the discipline in writing everyday (and potentially being more forgiving in daily word quotas) is more important?
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45,877 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 19 47
This is my 5th year with nanowrimo; I've won all prior 4 years.
And I've read No Plot! No Problem! and lots of NNWM stuff (posts, talks, press releases and stuff in the ML forums).
I think you're kind of right ...
There are 2 things that seem to correlate to success, mentioned repeatedly by Chris Baty:
1. posting in the forums, and
2. hitting 35,000 words.
For some reason, people involved in coming to the forums and posting generally stay the distance--maybe it's the community or motivation; maybe it's just that these the writers most committed to the wacky venture anyway.
And the 35,000 word count seems to be a big turning point--from there on the writing seems easier. Chris Baty describes it as "the cresta run"--but skiing metaphors don't really seem apropos in the tropics. Sorry I don't have a good substitute.
As for writing every day or being a "binge writer" and cramming it all in quickly (at any time during the month) --both methods seem to work. Turtles and hares can both cross this finish line.
Where "most" people seem to lose it--never starting. By far the biggest group of losers are those who sign up and then never log a word. By writing those first 100 words, you increase your chance of finishing by something like 50%
So yay! Go wrimos!
I wonder what other people think? What is the key to success?
----------Saipanwriter
http://saipanwriter.blogspot.com
42,562 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 23 32
I imagine that for me - it would be consistency. Writing every day. When I actually sit down to write, I can easily knock out 2k words a way, and on extra good days (or pressured ones), can bump that up to the 3k range. But I lost it last year very very quickly, simply by skipping one day. One day became two, which then became 3, and so on and so forth. I kept telling myself I'd get back to it and cram in a lot more words to make up for lost days... but I never did.
I started late on writing this time - didn't start till the night of the 4th/morning of the 5th,, then I wrote again last night. Tonight I will be doing the same. I think so long as I don't miss a day of writing, I might actually finish this year.
81,538 / 50,000
Nov 12, 2009 - 22 32
I've only had one successful Nano before this year, but I'm at 38K so far so I figure I'm on my way to a 2nd success.
It's really just a daily commitment -- if you make it your priority each day, more important than work, exercise, family, love, life, or health ... you'll make it. :)