misskokamon's picture
misskokamon from San Francisco is reading The Moonlit Mind December 2, 2011 - 12:18pm

Update: I made it! I wrote right up until midnight on november 30th and got about five words past the goal. Unfortunately, the validator goes offline at midnight, so by the time I compiled my project and had the website loaded--two minutes after midnight--it was too late for me to submit my novel into NaNo. I didn't get the purdy purple bar, but I'm a winner in my heart. Woo!

I can't wait for next year!

ReneeAPickup's picture
Class Facilitator
ReneeAPickup from Southern California is reading Wanderers by Chuck Wendig December 2, 2011 - 12:21pm

Ah that stinks! Haha, but you did it, and that's what is important!!

lynx_child's picture
lynx_child from Seattle is reading The Dresden Files series December 3, 2011 - 12:32am

I had to give up. Work kind of took over. I'm still working on the project, though, but more slowly.

Congrats to those who won :)

Jamie Grefe's picture
Jamie Grefe from Michigan December 3, 2011 - 1:11am

It was a great learning experience for me and a lesson in self-discipline. I think it was also a lesson in the amount of work it takes to build a novel. It was hard for me to enter into the world without sufficient time to spare, whereas short stories of mine can usually be completed in one sitting and then edited, edited, edited. What kinds of things did other participants learn from this experience? 

ReneeAPickup's picture
Class Facilitator
ReneeAPickup from Southern California is reading Wanderers by Chuck Wendig December 3, 2011 - 12:41pm

Well, this is year two for me. Last year was a blur, diving in head first, and having a lot of outside major life events. I wrote fifty thousand words...of drivel.

This year, I planned ahead, and set aside an idea I had been mulling over since summer. I made sure it was simple enough to remain "pure" in the rush. I focused on building up one character and letting everyone else have sort of "walk on" roles, and just making the plot clear and compelling. I am really excited about what I got out of it, needs a lot of revision, and while lots of it will probably be trashed, a lot of it has the potential to be expanded on and turned into something really good.