Winter Wrap-Up Part 1: NaNoWriMo

writing with pancakes

Writing longhand in Osaka

This was my first NaNoWriMo and I was TERRIFIED. With a daunting 50k monthly word goal and the whole first weekend of the month earmarked for a friend’s wedding in far-off Osaka, come November I knew I had to hit the ground running. I forced myself to wakeup at stupid o’clock on the morning of the 1st and pushed out nearly 1k before work, which set a good (if not sleepy) tone for the rest of the day. Thanks to the Wi-Fi desert that is the Tokyo Metropolitan Area transit system, I managed to make over 3k on my furious train-hopping to Kansai, twice the daily goal, but since I basically spent the rest of my weekend eating and catching up with friends, the head-start definitely helped keep me from panicking later on.

Being so singularly focused allowed me to break quite a few personal bests, amass a great 2k+ average daily total and eventually finish November off with an unbelievable 70,131 words. The best part was that the story was so close to being finished that I could see the light at the end of the tunnel! Even while planning for my winter break, in the first two weeks of the December I polished off the story with one whole day to spare before a hard-earned vacation. Aw yeaaah.

VICTORY DANCE!

So, long story short, NaNoWriMo was a ton of fun and I can’t wait to try again next year. There’s something about watching that little graph bar go up and up and up that sparks something primal in the monkey-brain. Having a whole bunch of other people all going through the same stress, sorrows and triumphs helps immensely and my only regret is that I didn’t give it a try earlier.

See you again next year, Wrimos!

2 thoughts on “Winter Wrap-Up Part 1: NaNoWriMo

  • Posted on March 9, 2014 at 12:15 pm

    Just curious: what was the final word count for the project, not just NaNiWriMo?

    Reply
    • Posted on March 9, 2014 at 2:16 pm

      Final word count was 95k, but it may just crack triple digits on revision. I typically underwrite on the first pass, so I usually have to add more than I cut during edits.

      Reply

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