I FINALLY MADE IT!!!

I hit 50k at about 1 o'clock this morning. I've been so busy lately that I was starting to wonder if I was going to be able to finish. But I did!! Now I'm gonna go sleep for a month... and finally get back to some graphics-making, which I have sorely missed.

My story isn't quite finished yet, but it's close. I might finish it even though it's epically horrible. That's what NaNo is all about, right? I haven't decided yet.

I always find it so funny how my stories never go where I think they're going to.

Congrats everyone else who's made it! Keep going if you haven't - there's still time!

WHOO!!! Great job, Hyaline!! And everyone else who has won since I was last on here!!

Silver, my carpal tunnel was numbed by tylenol and advil while I wrote. Of course, with me, it works for about two hours out of the six that its supposed to be working. I hand wrote it/dictated it to my sister. She was thrilled to say the least. My motivation? The bag of gummy bears and the NaNoWriMo sweatshirt I was promised if I won.

To those who have yet to win: YOU CAN DO THIS!!! THERE'S STILL TIME. WRITE WRITE WRITE!!!!

Just wanted to pop in and congratulate all you NANOWRIMO-ers! For those who have reached your goal of 50,000 words, how wonderful! And for those of you who are so close you can almost taste it, well, you still have a few hours. Rooting for you!
Way to go, whatever stage you're at!

I do hope this wasn't the case with anyone here, though.

Congratulations!

I think this may be my favorite compilation of sentences so far. It just makes me laugh. And that sounds really humble too.

It was too bright. It was too cold. It hurt too much. It smelled weird. It definitely wasn’t heaven.

Edit: DONE! And with editing too, at least the first draft editing. That was my goal- written and edited once by the end of November. Yay!

Done.
Done with both story and 50K.

I'm a bit in shock right now. I'm definitely about to go stir crazy from sitting here so long. I thought I had it finished about an hour and a half ago...verification revealed I was somehow 2000+ words short. Come to find out, OpenOffice counts your punctuation marks as words. Who knew?

Big, deep, sigh of relief. But I did it. Success.
I shall return later when I'm feeling more myself. Maybe I'll get a chance to come and cheer on those of you who are still writing tonight in the chatroom. I'll cheer you on now, anyway: It is possible! You can finish on the final day and live! I know! I have tried it!

Oh, and a big shout-out to Gymfan, who beat me in our 20K word war! Good job!

~tps

Well, I'm finally writing again and have written almost 2k today. I should have written more in the days between when I won and today. Oh well.

Whoo! Hit 50,000 words earlier today... and by earlier today, I meant 3:27 AM. (Hence why I did not post about it at that time, as I wanted to get sleep... all three hours of it. )

My last NaNo victory was 2007, and I shall have to recount some interesting differences between the two.

First, was that the two stories were vastly different in their basic concepts. My 2007 story ("The State of Mass Confusion") was a random, free-floating story that I had thought of previously, but had no intention of ever making into a serious story. This year, my story was more structured, and somewhat more serious, in that I might, just might, consider publishing this story in some major form after editing.

That said, I actually came up with the idea after NaNo started. I had started with a previous story that... well, it wasn't working quite like I wanted it to. I kept it around for my word count (and later found an excuse to shoehorn it into my current story as a "bonus story") but did not work much on it. After some quick planning, I had the basic plot and various details down and started working my way on the story.

The circumstances whereupon I was working on NaNo were very different, too. In 2007, I was working on it during college. While I did have stress from balancing it with college work, it was simple enough to more or less work on it bit by bit over the month, with only a few word-crunching sessions to catch up on missed words.

This year, I had to balance it with military matters, which includes a very rigorous course of study. This meant that I had homework I had to do (I was guilty of skipping some homework where I could back in college ) and, save for my last two "crunch time" nights, getting a good amount of sleep was pretty much an absolute necessity. Basically, I had to concentrate my writing power into weekends (plus that Night of Writing Narnianly event) and days when I did not have as much homework. As such, my word count would more or less go up in spurts. (The biggest of which occurring, of course, over Thanksgiving break, where I went from 25,000 words to 44,000 words.)

There are some other interesting differences. My 2007 story was more or less designed so that I could write a chapter every day; it ended up being a 21-chapter (+epilogue) story and was concluded at the 50,000+ word mark, and was pretty much one complete story. My current story, on the other hand, has much longer chapters (though a lot of that is because there's a lot of word cruft), and at its current state, isn't anywhere near even halfway done. It's also not exactly one story... basically, there's up through chapter 5 of the story, a random chapter from the middle of the story, some small bonus chapters, two bonus stories (including the one I had started at first, which I ended up with two chapters of), and a four-chapter story-within-a-chapter (...don't ask).

Also, unlike the first story, which was more of a fun thing, I might go ahead and continue with this year's story after November... but, there's going to be some painful editing to go through first... >_>

All in all, another great, fun NaNo year. With how well I fared against pretty tough circumstances this year, if next year's circumstances are somewhat better, I may just go for a goal higher than 5-wan. But I'll have to think of a good story to do, first...

To everyone else who won, conga rats! I hope you all had fun like I did, both three years ago and this year. And to those still pursuing that 50k mark, keep going! There's still some hours left on the clock!

Bonus Edit! There's absolutely nothing of interest in the Wordle of my main story, but I ran it for one of my bonus stories and it came out fairly nice.

Well, I've decided to stop writing at 60,088 words. 60,000 was my goal, and 8 has always been my lucky number, so that total seems right, somehow. I'm happy to admit that I really surprised myself this month. I'd doubted that I'd make it to 50k, and here I am with 60k!

My story isn't done, though. In fact, I think I'm only about halfway. Once NaNo is over, I'm going to go back to working on the novel I'm supposed to be editing. But I think that editing is going to go much faster now that I understand what I'm capable of. And if my creativity runs dry for some reason, I'm definitely coming back to this story to get inspired again.

HUGE congrats to AC, Hyaline, tps, and Stardf for hitting 50k, and to Gymfan and Queen Susan for meeting your goals! I'm so happy for you all! Seriously, seeing so many people meeting their goals is giving me the warm-fuzzies.

And finally, I have made a Wordle of my novel for your enjoyment, although I have taken out all made-up names of people and places (just because I'm paranoid like that ). It's interesting to see what words I used the most. The website I made this on is Wordle.net, in case you were wondering.

There's still time left before the clock strikes midnight and NaNoWriMo comes to a close! WRITE WRITE WRITE!!!

Woohoo, ChristProclaimer! Congratulations on acquiring that snazzy purple bar! 112k is astounding!

65k is a great total, Stargazer! Congratulations on reaching it during November! *confetti*

HYALINE!! YOU DID IT! Wahoo! Congratulations! I'm so glad you are joining the winner's circle.

I hand wrote it/dictated it to my sister. She was thrilled to say the least.

That is so sweet of your sister! Congratulations on finishing! Absolfluttinlutely fantastic!

Thanks for the congratulations, Jo. Ever considered joining our ranks?

Queen Susan, I am in awe of you. Editing your novel? Wow! I always write mine and then lock it up and throw the key away. I am always so afraid to look back at it. You are a brave woman.

OpenOffice counts punctuation marks? What kind of program is that? That's not a word count, that's a character count! Anyway, congratulations on finishing your story, TPS!

Congratulations, Stardf! Interesting to read the differences between your two stories. Congratulations, again.

Seriously, seeing so many people meeting their goals is giving me the warm-fuzzies.

Me, too! This is so happy. lol You and I can be sappy together.

Sooo...has anyone got their plot for next year yet?

NaNo is done, and so is my novel. And all I can say is...

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Happy NaWriSleMo, or National Writer's Sleeping Month!

Well I did my best at NaNoWriMo this year. I only got 45,209 words out of 50,000 but it was my first year. I do feel a bit bad about my ending word count but I'll do better next year. I'd say overall I did pretty well, though I should have spent more time writing my novel. Oh well, live and learn.

A big CONGRATULATIONS to all you NaNoWriMo winners out there and to those of you who tried their best but didn't quite make the goal. You all did exceptionally well and should be proud of yourself for even attempting to write a novel. It's a big task and you did well no matter what your word ended up being. Great job to all us NaNos

Me again. Yes, I'm back, breathing in a deep breath on the first day of NaNoSleMo.

This is kind of dorky, but in celebration I made us all a Wordle; Everyone who participated in this month has their name on it. If I missed someone or counted someone twice under two names, sorry...it gets confusing with the two websites and all.

Way to go, us! *high fives anyone who happens to be around*

*high fives everyone who finished yesterday* You all are awesome, you know that? I can't believe how many of us NWebbers actually completed this challenge! (Like Gymfan said though, we're on a site for one of the greatest authors ever, so it only comes naturally, I suppose. )

And to all of you who were not able to finish, you are still amazing, and you have still written more words in this month than most people will ever write in their lifetime!!

Sooo...has anyone got their plot for next year yet?

Oh, I've only got about two or three ideas floating around in my head right now. In addition to that one story I almost dumped my NaNo for at the end of October, I also came up with another novel (hee!) idea a week or two ago and I'm currently loving it! I half wish that I didn't have to wait until next year to do it, but I have about three half written novels that I need to work on finishing before I start another project. And then there is also the third book in the Robin Hood series that I'm working on, which could be a future NaNo project as well.

CP, I love the NarniaWeb Wordle!! That is awesome!!

FireFlower, may I simply say that you rock? Cause you do! The way you churned out all of those words and finished ahead of schedule was incredible!

I did not finish my novel during November. In fact, I scarcely touched it after I reached 50k on the 17th. I did get 1600 words in last night though, which I was moderately happy about. I will finish this book though, and I will get it edited, and I will get my free copy this time! No way am I missing out on that again!

--- flambeau

I did not finish my novel during November. In fact, I scarcely touched it after I reached 50k on the 17th. I did get 1600 words in last night though, which I was moderately happy about. I will finish this book though, and I will get it edited, and I will get my free copy this time! No way am I missing out on that again!

I hear ya! I've hardly even looked at my novel notebook for the past week...

A HUGE high five/pat on the back for all who won!!!

Susan's_look_a_like, for your first year, your word count is quite impressive. Don't feel bad about not winning, there's always next year. And the year after that.

Just popping in to say CONGARATS to you all who participated faithfully in NaNoWriMo this year!!!! It is indeed a very interesting experience.
*throws confetti*