Winning NaNoWriMo

     So, this year I won NaNoWriMo.

     Now you may ask: What is that? 

     NaNoWriMo stands for Nation Novel Writing Month. Which is in November, and it happens every year. It’s basically a competition where you don’t compete against others, but against yourself. Your goal is to write a novel in a month, and reach 50,000 words.

     Let me tell you something: 50,000 words is a lot. 

     I wasn’t even planning on doing it, since I miserably failed it last year. But my friend convinced me to on the day before. She was doing it as well (And she won too!) So I used the same outline from last year, and started again.

     I don’t think I could’ve won without my friend. I wouldn’t even have started it without her! It was really helpful to have her during this time. We texted each other and did occasional sprints. She was way ahead of me though. It was good because we could share our feelings towards it with each other. We understood each other’s stress. 

     I don’t really want to tell you what the story is about. It’s still too personal. But I can tell you that it is a romance. And if you look me up on the website, you’ll see that the name of the novel is “Working on It.”

     It was extremely stressful, and I wanted to give up every day. Sometime I would write only 100 words in a day, and other times I would write 3,000. But at the end, it was worth it. 

     I still can’t believe it. And I finished on the exact last day! 50,053 to be exact!

     I haven’t really finished the novel, and I wanted to do it now, since I’m still kind of “in that world.” But now I’m on my lazy mode. I might revise it during January, which is what the NaNo people recommend you to do. 

     If you have an idea for a novel in your head, and you are too lazy to write it. I recommend NaNoWriMo for you. It was really helpful to put my ideas in a page. Sure, I am super tired of it now. And the story sucks. But at least I have something. 

     Also, today I met the author Eileen Cook. She came to my Creative Writing class. And she was super impressed with me and my friend for winning NaNoWriMo, and it was nice to have a published author congratulating you. She also gave me a signed copy of her book “Year of mistaken discoveries.” She is super nice. I’ve never read any of her books but apparently they are really well written. So go check them out!

     Now, what about you? Did you participate in NaNoWriMo? What was your word count?            

     Remember: If you wrote 10K, you’re a winner. If you got to 40K, you are a winner as well. As long as you started writing your novel in November, you are a winner!