I wrote 50,000 words in 23 days to win NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month.
Yeah baby!
I happy danced and then cried a little when the NaNoWriMo Team sent a YouTube Video with their congratulations.
Every day in November, I woke up and felt driven. Writing in the morning worked the best for me, but oftentimes I started up again around four O’clockish. I had to make time for it no matter what was going on. Yesterday, I was less than 2000 words away from my 50,000 word goal, but I went skiing with my husband, Danny, our niece and her boyfriend.
I wrote on the way down the mountain, (in my car, of course, and no, I wasn’t driving), but I was 800 words shy of the 50,000 word total when we rolled up in Boulder. After writing an average of 2179 words per day, it killed me to be so close, but I had to go to sleep.
Because skiing.
After cranking out a rough draft and working my hiney off every day in November, what will it feel like tomorrow?
I could have NaNoWriMo Withdrawal!
Beware of these symptoms:
- A strong desire to update word counts.
Treatment: Compile Tweets, Facebook updates, and blog posts and then paste them into Word documents to keep from getting the shakes.
- Nervous ticks like checking out your writing buddies’ word count every fifteen minutes.
Treatment: Keep cheering them on even though you miss the competition and are tempted to start another book.
- Obsessive thoughts of wallpapering your bedroom with NaNoWriMo Winner Web Badges.
Treatment: Since you are fascinated with the swirly decorative winner logo, use it as inspiration for a smaller scale art project. If you don’t snap out of it, you’ll be doing all kinds of art projects, at the asylum.
- Habitually clicking around your NaNoWriMo site to see your unchanging stats and purple winner ribbon all hours of the day and night.
Treatment: Step away from your computer! Get out of your house NOW! GET A LIFE!
What will I do?
I plan to shovel the dust bunnies off the wood floors and then wash twenty-five loads of dirty clothes. After hosing down the house, I’ll fill my empty refrigerator. Okay. I’m addicted. I’ll make notes for my third book in the series. Even new habits die hard.
Would you consider participating in NaNoWriMo?
Susie Lindau's Wild Ride 
You finishing this challenge ahead of schedule does not surprise me at all, Susie. What would have surprised would have been if you had failed to do so. That doesn’t seem to be your style. You had everything going for you to cross the finish line: the drive, the time, the discipline. That’s key. Once you got started, you seemed to enter your writing zone and that got you even more fired up.
Challenges like NaNoWriMo are impossible for me due to working full-time. Even if I completely put my social life on lockdown and stopped ushering off-Broadway theater, thirty days would not be enough time for me considering how much of my week I have to spend commuting to and from as well as being at The Grind. But, I am glad that you made the most of having the time to pull this off. I am sure many other people who also had the time lost their focus. Or maybe they struggled with their idea as you plowing ahead.
So what are you going to do with it now? Are you planning to show it to anyone? What about Danny? Or, is it still gestating?
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Thanks V! What I realized was a person needed to commit to 1667 words a day to finish on November 30th. That could take a couple hours a day. For some strange reason, I hit my stride on 2200 words so that’s how I got ahead. I had a few days when I hit it again in the afternoon and ended in the 3000 range. I would get the “I don’t want to,” feeling, quit for a while and go back at it. It did help to have a plan before starting. I can’t say I always had a lot of time, I do have a life, but I carved it out.
I’ll wait until after Thanksgiving and want to do at least one rewrite before Danny reads it. Then, I’ll rewrite the first book in the series and then knock out the third. Grandiose ideas for 2015! Are you working on any projects?
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It seems to me that you found this challenge very inspiring. Sometimes when I’m writing in “the zone” my story appears to be writing itself. That’s exhilarating.
I have something I hope to complete in the not too distant future. Compared to your grand opus, it’s just a minor speck of prose.
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Just keep on writing, girlfriend!
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I’ve my doing my 9th NaNo this year, and while I’ve won every time, I’ve never finished as early as you have. My suggestions for those addicted to NaNoWriMo: sign up again next year! And keep writing the other 11 months. Congratulations. Can’t wait to do my own victory dance.
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Wow! You rock! They have others during the year, right? I think there’s one in the spring and definitely Camp WriMo in the summer. I would love to write the third book in the series with “the team.”
Woohoo! I’ll dance with you on the 30th!
Thanks Kit!
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Holy Crap! You go girl! Good for you. Glad you made it to the other side and that. It is awesome that you finished a first draft of your novel and even greater that you did it through the NanoWrimo challenge. You are definitely badass.
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That means a lot coming from your badass self! I don’t know how you have time to blog let alone accomplish so much.
Thanks so much Guat and Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
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Congratulations! A tremendous achievement – good stuff.
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Thanks Matt! I’m hoping this new habit sticks around after Thanksgiving! I’m throwing all of my energy into cleaning and decorating. Whew!
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Well, “wild girl”, ya did it !!! Congratulations ! I would never attempt such a feat as I get interrupted to often and my muse is totally inconsistent these days. The pics make me think that you might be just a bit happy ??? 🙂 Have a great week, Susie. 🙂
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Thanks Paul! I need to be uninterrupted too. When I started I had no idea if I could stick with it. It was a nice surprise. 🙂
I had trouble getting my book verified and at one point it said I only wrote 8,000 words! I thought I deleted my word count for the month and had a heart attack! I finally figured it out and then did my happy dance. Whew!
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Congratulations! That is fantastic and I’m super impressed with you sliding in before the deadline. I’ve got 10,000 words to write in five days. It’s getting tight, but I feel like I’m going to nail it still. And then the next question, what to do next? It’s an intense month, but a good month. Can’t believe how nice it felt to dive into the writing again. Yay NaNoWriMo! ~Catherine
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Way to go, Catherine! Woohoo! You can do it!
It is intense and today was the first day I could get away from my computer and I wrote a blog post! Sheesh! Addicted is right.I’m getting antsy to start rewriting. Thanksgiving will be a great break!
Thank you!
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Congratulations Susie!! That’s a big deal. You could do a NaNoDecembo just because you can and now you know how and all. Just a suggestion.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Patricia Rickrode
w/a Jansen Schmidt
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I have a lot of projects lined up that’s for sure! I will hit it hard in January. Thanks so much Patricia! Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family too!
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Homework done before the holidays! Good job. Gobble on
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Thank you! I haven’t stopped.
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Congratulations, Susie… I had no doubts. (nice touch with the glasses… very writerly)
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Thanks so much Ted. Happy Thanksgiving!
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Congrats! i could never do that.
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Thanks Lena! I didn’t know if I could either until I tried. 🙂
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I am glad you have it crushed! I can no longer write like that and not sure that I would want to. However, I am still writing and still enjoying the process.
Good luck to you in this next year of literary workings.
Scott
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