Comments on: NaNoWriMo – Success Isn’t Just Words on the Page

By: Darynda Jones

Darynda Jones — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:22:18 +0000

Great post, Sara! And I LOVE WriteOrDie! I even paid to download it onto my computer, to have the proverbial slavemaster at my fingertips. Actually, I just really like the stats. I’m much more of a stats girl than my high school math teachers would have predicted.

Hugs and write on!
~D~

By: Vanessa Barneveld

Vanessa Barneveld — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:18:07 +0000

Well, I hope all this effort will pay off financially one day and I’ll be able to afford luxurious padded walls. Good luck with Nano!

By: Kelly Fitzpatrick

Kelly Fitzpatrick — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:04:25 +0000

That’s me, Arlene. Each day I want to go back and either read from the beginning or read from the chapter break. I’m fighting it, because I end up reading the story so many times I’m sick to death.

By: Kelly Fitzpatrick

Kelly Fitzpatrick — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:01:01 +0000

I find I can break promises to myself, but when I tell other people, like a group I have a goal, then I will stick to it.

By: Sara Ramsey

Sara Ramsey — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:06:29 +0000

Arlene – 9000 words is fantastic! Just try not to pay attention to the people who have more words than you – as fun as the competition aspect is, it’s ultimately meaningless. Good luck this month!!

By: Sara Ramsey

Sara Ramsey — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:05:22 +0000

Thanks Anne! Belonging to a weekly goals group is a great idea – it’s funny how it’s so much easier to let down ourselves than it is to feel like we’ve let down others. It really is all about mind games

By: Sara Ramsey

Sara Ramsey — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:04:03 +0000

Yeah – it’s no wonder the day job has not felt good the past couple of weeks – the only way I can write this much this fast is to spend all my time daydreaming, which is NOT conducive to the million things going on in the office

By: Arlene Hittle

Arlene Hittle — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:26:20 +0000

I’m almost exactly where you are, with a little more than 9,000 words … I wrote the required words (plus a few extra) on Day One, then didn’t hit my targets the next several days, and added about 3,000 to my total during a Sunday writing marathon.

I get a little discouraged when I see that my writing buddies have more than 20,000 words when I haven’t even hit 10,000 yet, but then I tell myself “That’s 9,000 more than I’d have had if I weren’t participating in NaNo.”

I am having trouble locking away that inner critic, though. I tend to write a scene, then read it through and edit it. It’s been hard to just keep writing.

By: Jeannie Lin

Jeannie Lin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:06:25 +0000

That’s a million dollar question. It only happens when I’m forced to write fast I think. When I fast draft (my mini version of Nano) I only hit that stride after about 4 days of writing every moment I can. And I can only write every moment if I spend every other moment when I can’t write daydreaming about the story.

By: Anne Barton

Anne Barton — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:07:34 +0000

Great post, Sara!

I loved your day by day breakdown. I’m not doing NaNo, but I belong to a weekly goals group, and I definitely play those mind games with myself. Congrats on the progress so far, and thanks for taking a break from your ms to share your insights! It’s much appreciated.

Anne