I have tried NaNo twice before in earnest, once amassing 30K words and another time failing to get beyond 20K. However, this year I have a few new things working in my favor that makes me think I can do it:
- I am prepping throughout October and will have an outline ready before Nov 1
- I have an Astrohaus Freewrite typewriter so I can write distraction-free
- I have completed the first draft of one other novel (190K words). This took me about two years including some long breaks. But the end of it was quite speedy thanks to my typewriter. And also this has proven to me that I am capable of writing a novel.
-I am not traveling in November which I usually do. More time for writing.
https://nanowrimo.org/participants/thebaysix/projects/the-butterfly-shooter
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🏅 Top traders
| # | Name | Total profit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ṁ153 | |
| 2 | Ṁ23 | |
| 3 | Ṁ15 | |
| 4 | Ṁ10 | |
| 5 | Ṁ4 |
Unfortunately my attempt was derailed by illnesses. I'm still going to finish north of 30K, which I'm pretty happy with. I'm about 40% done with the 1st draft of the story, which in a month is pretty good.
Hope to do even better next time, and apologies to those YES bettors! Thanks for the support, it helped with the motivation earlier in the month :)
@thebaysix My NO bet was informed by your comment about having done prep and outlining beforehand. There's less adrenaline & excitement that way, which is often a big help for something like NanoWriMo. Would you say that contributed at all, or was it just a lucky bet?
@MichaelWheatley I think prep and outlining helped me more than it hurt me, but actually didn't help quite as much as I was expecting. I felt a tension writing to an outline that at times felt overly restrictive. I think I'm naturally in between an "architect" and a "gardener" to use George R.R. Martin's terms, which makes prep somewhat helpful but no guarantee of success. I think I did better having prepped than if I had done none, but one thing I may have to work on is prepping the right kind of thing. I outlined some scenes that turned out to be unnecessary and I didn't outline some that I realized needed to happen. It's hard for me to tell if this means I over or under prepped, but overall I don't think adrenaline or lack thereof was a major factor.
FWIW I have done one Nano attempt totally unprepared, and that one went the worst of my three attempts. However, that was also many years ago and I feel much more confident writing now than I did then, so I'm not sure it's a useful data point :)
@GeorgeTaylor Haha I don't think so, but maybe there's a spy around me somewhere. 50k is a lot of words, so maybe it's just general doubt ¯\_(ツ)_/¯