Novemeber is over, Christmas is on its way, and this year’s NaNoWriMo is complete. The goal? 50,000 words in 30 days. If you took part, how did you do?
This year’s NaNoWriMo went better than I expected. I didn’t “win” by achieving 50,000 words, but I achieved a personal goal to write something every day so this year is a win for me. I wrote in my notebook by hand (which slowed things down as I had to do a word count every time I was doing a stats update) but I also timed myself doing short sprints over a lunch break and on evenings. I also found Pocket Bard to be insanely helpful for ambient background noise when I was scene setting, which helped get me into a good headspace.
Writing in a notebook helps me get ideas down. There’s something intimidating for me to be confronted by an empty word document, but somehow notebook pages feel more forgiving. It also allows me to make notes in the margins about what the scene I’m working on is, and notes to come back to in future. The self censoring is also very visual as it’s a physical black line through words / sentences, so I am less inclined to let my inner critic take the reins. It’s still there btw, you just don’t get the sense of “if I just delete this paragraph no one will know” which has hindered me in the past.
I also prepped the blog to run without me (hooray for scheduled posts), was very strict on my other projects and took time for myself with some reading, socialising and travelling, so NaNoWriMo didn’t take over the entirety of my month. It was nice to get back to writing again and letting it flow (something I had lost over the last few years), so I am very happy with the outcome of this year’s challenge.
How does it compare to the last attempt?
My previous attempt at NaNoWriMo was in 2022 with my science fiction / science fantasy story “We Share The Same Sky”
- Word Count: 7136 / 50,000
- Active Writing Days: 10 / 30
- Badges: 2 day streak, 1667 words, 5000 words, Update twice in a day
This year’s attempt, my fantasy adventure “Wide Open Sky”
- Word Count: 11,752 / 50,000
- Active Writing Days: 30/ 30
- Badges: Start a Streak, Write Every Day, Write 10K words, Update more than once in one day
Wolfish Written 
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