My sincere apologies for implying that those who didn’t make 50k (myself included) are “losers” in any but a very strict, technical sense specific to not reaching this particular goal. Or, rather, for reporting that my internal editor was of that opinion.

Thanks for the positive attitudes here. I’m trying desperately to look on the bright side. I can compare my NaNo 2009 26k words to my results in JulNoWriMo 2009, where I only had 723 words, and say that I’ve improved 3,600%! It’s a tough sell getting that past the internal editor, though.

Mike, that would have to be a steam shovel… oh the inhumanity! Oh what a rhinoceros rampage!

As for me, the college schedule does not make November the most effective month for cranking out stuff. I have finals a week from now. My novel understands that I paid money for college, and it’s not good to waste thousands of dollars I could do NaNo (ostensibly) in any other month EXCEPT November, holidays or no holidays.

I’m going to crank out some more this weekend, but I think it would be much better for me if I created my own NaNoWriMo, in between my month-long winter break before Spring Semester.

I can do that, right?

I know a bunch of you wrote a million words in the last days of nano in previous years, but I will not be winning this year, I know that. I will probably get a little over halfway there (30K by Sunday night is my goal, and I am solidly booked Monday, so that’s my endpoint). I look at it like this. 1. I wrote almost every day. This is great. I wanna keep that up. 2. I have 30K of words I didn’t have before November 1st. This is great.

So? Success, as far as I’m concerned. Glad I did it even if I didn’t/won’t technically “win.”

I’m dying on NaNoWriMo… I’m at 24k and still slogging it out, but realistically… yeah, yeah, good experience, blah blah, but there’s this voice inside saying “you’re going to be one of THE LOSERS!” It is more a depressing voice than a motivational “kick it in gear” one.

I wanted to say what a big help these podcasts have been. Episode 22, which I listened to this morning before skipping ahead to this one, was a terrific help! Episode 19, however, with John Brown, may have saved my life. I’m reading Feeling Good (I’m a little shocked at how high I tested for depression, though I’m not at all suicidal) and I’m feeling a little better… I’m using the “write down negative thought and refute it” technique for catching myself at negative self-talk to try to quiet the internal editor, which helps me pump out words even though I was about ready to give it up. Now if I could just get the internal editor to put the sniper rifle down and come down off that water tower…

I’ve learned that I can find time to write a lot even during a month when I have relatives visiting, family actiivties, and a host of other things to do. If I only waited to write during months when there wasn’t much going on, then I wouldn’t write much at all.

Good luck to everyone else who is coming up in the wordcount. Let’s all finish strong!

I actually wrote about 40k in that final week of NaNoWriMo last year. It had taken me about four YEARS to write my novel’s previous 40k.

So, uh, you’d be surprised…

That’s what this podcast was about, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Cross_Novel_Challenge – for those who are curious.

Congratulations to all of you who’ve already cleared 50,000 words, by the way

http://mbarker.livejournal.com/129022.html

It took me a few days to turn off the internal editor. Actually it isn’t so much about turning it off as just ignoring it and bulling ahead anyway, typos, misphrasing and all. Making notes to self as to what to fix later. After a few days of being ignored, your internal editor gives up trying to just stop you and starts steering you instead; the writing just starts coming out better.

And if you’re into script writing they have script frenzy in april, also by the Office of Lights and Letters, which is just the movie script version of NaNo.

Consider: “National” Novel Writing Month isn’t nearly big enough to account for the variation in climate, schedule, and culture just within the United States, let alone the World. We need WoNoWriMo, and we need to be able to hold three of them per year.

That, and November is a really sucky writing month for those of us in the southern hemisphere. It’s allegedly summer, everyone is packing their schedules full as possible to try and avoid pre-christmas stress, getting the shopping out of the way, having surprise family visits, unexpected funerals, etc… It probably also has something to do that this novel is simply bigger than anything I’ve done before, and I’m not enjoying writing the middle of it so much any more. I’m kinda pleased that I’ve kept my earlier, way-too-slow pace throughout the month, rather than dropped back even further.

I’ll probably give myself a 50k wordcount challenge early next year in Jan or Feb to try and work on my ability to sit down and write for decent periods of time without distracting myself too much. I think it might have been Brandon who said it at one point, but editing or re-writing is what I do when I’m not feeling like writing anything I’ve got outlined so that I don’t just sit there repeating “writer’s block!” to myself. Howard is absolutely right that I need to sit down and tell myself to do the hard part and get back to writing from an outline*. Filling up my schedule has given me too many excuses to be an undisciplined writer.

* Discovery writing seems to be the easier type for me, but you need some sort of outline by the time you get to novel length or, at least in my experience, it seems to turn into one giant amorphous cliché.

NaNoWriMo taught me a lot and I would not be the writer I am now without it. Before I discovered it, I suffered from two ailments: perfectionism in the form of first chapter syndrome, and world-builder’s disease. I was forced to turn both of those off in order to get to the 50K mark by the end. The biggest lesson, though, was that it taught me that I COULD write a book.

NaNoWriMo is the best thing that ever happened to my writing. So, for those on the home stretch, keep your head up and continue moving forward.

To anyone who wants more material while waiting for the Excuses crew to get more eps out each week, google for Stackpole ‘The Secrets’. He doesn’t post podcasts very often, but has some real gems in the archives for additional thoughts on writing.

@Eliyanna – It’s not that we don’t like our internal editors, it’s that there’s no place for them in the writing process until *after* we’ve actually written something. There’s no point in fixing chapter 1 after writing chapter 5 if we’ll only have to fix it again after we write chapter 10, 15, 20, etc. At some point you just run out of energy and enthusiasm for the story. Michael A. Stackpole’s advice on this matter is to just “make a note and move on.” (I might be paraphrasing).

Although the best part may actually be the belief you gain from finally winning one of just how much you can pump out if you really try. It really changes the way you look at writing, or it did for me anyway.

My problem is that I’m way too tempted to go back and re-write, because it’s using the part of my brain that I’m more comfortable with, and I’m good enough now to see when things are wrong and need another pass.

You guys are the greatest!

A shove?!…*sniffs* poor Mr. Kitty…

And if it makes you feel better, Eliyanna, I’m only at 15k right now. The sad thing is that’s pretty good for a monthly word count for me. Fortunately, I’m not doing anything over Thanksgiving, so I’ll just shovel some writing out somehow.

This is the longest single piece of original fiction that I’ve ever written, and I’ve written it in about three weeks. It’s been a crazy, crazy journey, the so-far culmination of about a year and a half of writing… and Writing Excuses has helped a lot along the way. Cheers!

(PS: Yes, I actually do have a life. Well, maybe not a LIFE. But I was juggling a part time job and full-time school career at the time, so there.)

Thanks!

PS- Saw Brandon in NYC earlier this month, and he was awesome! (But I hope he gets to take a nap soon.)