Another November has come and gone, and with it has been a flurry of words as thousands upon thousands of people attempted to write a novel in 30 days. This annual phenomenon is known as National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. (Just in case you’re new here. It could happen.) Many (far too many) of those people fell along the way, either realizing that writing is work (Sorry, Dean Wesley Smith) or that their style did not involve flurries — but then not adjusting their personal goal to fit this discovery. Some did the thing I wish they would not do: fell behind early on and just quit rather than see how far they could get — or even whether they could rally by the end.
I’m sure some signed up and then just forgot.
Of those that stayed with it, only a fraction reached 50,000 words, that arbitrary number that declares one a WINNER for National Novel Writing Month.
And what of me, the subject of this blog you clicked on by mistake? That random writer from the internet you wish would just shut up and get to the point already? Well, if you’ve been here before, you’ll recognize the handy dandy chart. If not… well, here’s a chart.
THE CHART
DATE DAY’S TOTAL GOAL
COUNT COUNT
11/01* 4,198 4,198 1,667
11/02 817 5,015 3,334
11/03 1,563 6,578 5,000
11/04 1,271 7,849 6,667
11/05 415 8,264 8,334
11/06 1,307 9,571 10,000
11/07* 2,581 12,152 11,667
11/08* 3,509 15,661 13,334
11/09 21 15,682 15,000
11/10 1,730 17,412 16,667
11/11 211 17,623 18,334
11/12 71 17,694 20,000
11/13 38 17,732 21,667
11/14* 4,787 22,519 23,334
11/15* 2,894 25,413 25,000
11/16 177 25,590 26,667
11/17 1,025 26,615 28,334
11/18 595 27,210 30,000
11/19 109 27,319 31,667
11/20 256 27,575 33,334
11/21* 2,703 30,278 35,000
11/22* 2,131 32,409 36,667
11/23 865 33,274 38,334
11/24 776 34,050 40,000
11/25 1,818 35,868 41,667
11/26* 2,212 38,080 43,334
11/27* 6,086 44,166 45,000
11/28* 4,667 48,833 46,667
11/29* 2,075 50,908 48,334
11/30 2,127 53,035 50,000
*Days I did not have to JOB.
As you can see, I ended the month with 53,035 words. (Blame Bonetti.) This novel took 31.25 hours to write (give or take). I averaged 1,696 words per hour. (Seems kind of slow for me, but it fits, given the mindset this year. I would have to go back to previous years for full stats-nerd analysis.)
THE BREAKDOWN
2020 was weird. I’m not talking about the weird people usually call it. I don’t personally buy into that version. The pandemic and the political and social strife are largely outside my control. I wear my mask and try to keep away from people as much as possible. I voted, of course, but we all know how much elected officials listen to the average person. Right? So I am doing what I can, but as I tell people at JOB, I am only one person. I do not control the world.
But something about NaNoWriMo 2020 just kicked my butt all the way to Timbuktu and back. I would sit down to the computer to write words, open up all the files I needed (tracking sheets, the document itself, previous day’s document to catch up on where I was in the story)… and sit there. Stare at the screen. Imagine the story but do nothing to put it on the page.
And after a couple of hours of that, it was time for bed, so I would hastily type 200 words or so (on the good days. You saw there were many sub-100 days — but no zero-word days!) and hit the hay. Next day, repeat.
By the first weekend, I was so far behind I did not think I would catch up. But I did. My weekly phone call with my Canadian writer friend helped a lot. And then the cycle repeated during the next week. By Thanksgiving weekend, I was about 10,000 words behind (hmmm… this seems familiar!) but with my mindset over the month, I was convinced I was in for my first-ever loss. My friend, who had also fallen behind, had also resigned herself to not winning. But we would both go down fighting.
(SIDE NOTE: I know I say you don’t lose if you don’t quit, but for me — and only me — it’s a loss if I don’t hit 50k. Because I’ve done this for more than a decade and a half, and my “you don’t lose” philosophy, while something I believe with all my heart, is primarily aimed at newcomers who are more prone to just quitting if they start to fall behind.)
Something strange and miraculous happened over Thanksgiving weekend. That mindset that had plagued me all month? Well, it didn’t vanish entirely, but I was able to force myself into the writing, and managed entire “loops” of sprints. By the end of Black Friday, I was only about a day behind. I couldn’t believe it! And with this new surge of wordiness, I not only won NaNoWriMo on Day 29, I finished the danged book on Day 30!
Not only that, my Canadian writer friend rallied that Saturday AND WON! (She beat me by about two hours, even.) Let me tell you, the adulation and congratulation that happened between us was almost sickening. But dammit, we had EARNED this win.
So to sum up this WAY TOO LONG story, I am now 16 for 16, maintained my 100% win rate, and have no idea how I’ve managed to write 100k+ in previous years when lately it’s a struggle just to hit the minimum 50k.
SOME HIGHLIGHTS
You may recall that one of the things I was worried about going into this pandemic-year event was the virtual nature of it. There were ZERO in-person events, and even if any had been held, I would not have been in attendance. As a result of these policies, we did not write in IKEA or the Grand Californian Hotel at Disneyland. Because the in-person interaction is what always made NaNoWriMo the awesome event it is, I did not know if the online voice chats via our Discord server would be enough.
Well, thank goodness I was not entirely correct.
WRITE THE (VIRTUAL) RAILS
One of the fan favorites in our region is our annual train write to Oceanside, where we enjoy a yumbly lunch at a diner on the pier, then write for a time before we have to catch the train back to Orange County.
Pandemic times means the train schedule is wonky, there is no indoor dining, and who wants to be where all those people are?
Bonetti had the solution: A program he found called OpenRails had a route simulation from Los Angeles to San Diego (which incorporated our stops in the real world). So he put together a FIVE AND A HALF HOUR VIDEO:
30 minutes on the platform in Los Angeles, waiting for the train. We show up between 9:00 and 9:30, chit chat, and watch the lighting effects in the program as we wait for the train to pull up.
Two hours from Los Angeles to San Diego.
30 minutes of a nice restaurant scene overlooking the ocean. This was our meal break, and we could go out and nuke something or (if you’re someone with a spouse or roommate who cooks) grab the food that has been prepared for you. Theoretically you could also have gotten a delivery scheduled for this time. We don’t judge.
30 minutes of a pier view. This simulates our writing time on the pier (or the beach area, some years) before having to return to the train.
Two hours from San Diego to Los Angeles.
Some things to remember: 1) Bonetti rendered the two trips SEPARATELY in the program for the video. This was a major time commitment on his part, because each rendering took more than the two hours the trip represented. Plus, if there was a flaw (that the rest of us probably would not have noticed), he scrapped it and did it again. Then he had to splice the entire video together and export it — which I know from my Sims video days takes TIME. Topping that off was posting it to YouTube so we would all have access to the video (see #2 for the why). Which takes ANOTHER chunk of time. This man cares so much about our region and giving us some sense of normalcy in a most abnormal age that he took ALL THAT TIME to make sure we have our biggest-draw write-in. I wish it was in my power to give him a medal, because he damned well deserves it.
2) He uploaded to YouTube (and set it as a PREMIER) so that we would have a virtual background for our cameras. I use a program called OBS when I stream, so it was simple to pop in the URL of the video, set a random laptop image onto it, and capture my writing screen so it looked like I was typing away on the train. He set the video as a premiere so that we would all be mostly synced up. If he passed a string of lights, I was passing that same string of lights within a couple of seconds, and Titainia was, as well. If someone wasn’t using a virtual background, they could be playing the video for themselves and feel like they were also on the train, and THEY were passing that string of lights at the same time the rest of us were. Seriously — you do not understand how EPIC this write-in was!
Plus, when one of our group wanted to leave the write-in, we pushed her off the train. It was entertaining, and something we would never have done during the real thing.
No, not even me. *ahem* *whistles innocently*
24-HOUR WRITE-IN
Another staple of our region is the famed 24-hour write-in. Usually, we would have a location donated to us for a day (or a generous region member or members would Air-BnB a place for us), and we would be in that place from a specific time Saturday through that time Sunday. (The times in the past have ranged from 11:00am-ish to 3:00pm-ish.)
This year, our Discord server was turned into an old, mysterious manor with various rooms. There was a quiet library for those who wanted to write without interruption. The more chatty among us could yammer away in the dining room. We were all greeted warmly in the Foyer. Some retired to a Cozy Fireplace (with an ambient sound bot). Others found themselves in a Fantasy Garden (another ambient sound bot playing haunting music from Lord of the Rings). When I was in hard-core writing mode, I had found a secret passage behind a painting. I holed up in there and pounded out a few thousand words before returning to the dining room to chat.
At 9pm, a train went through the house, and there was a nighttime train ride from Los Angeles to San Diego. (Yes, Bonetti rendered a THIRD TRIP for this!! HE NEEDS A MEDAL!) The lighting in OpenRails made this night ride feel just like my normal winter commute home from JOB. Could see very little, except for the lights in the shops, but somehow that still gave you the information you needed to know where you were. It was fantastic!
The 24-Hour went from 11:00am to 11:00am, and I slept on my own couch when I got too tired to continue (rather than dozing sitting up on a stranger’s sofa). (FULL DISCLOSURE YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT: I do not own a bed. I actually do sleep on a couch in my bedroom.)
Since the Sunday Morning group usually meets from 10:00am to 1:00pm, the end of the 24-Hour bled into that one. I hit 50k during the Sunday Morning group.
And it was very emotional for me. Going into the weekend, I was bracing myself for a soul-crushing defeat, and I came out the other side with my perfect streak intact. And much of it was due to how amazing these two virtual events had been. They had things all month long, but I was not at most of it (sometimes due to JOB and sometimes because I was just not in the mood).
SUMMING UP
I say it time and time again: It’s the people that keep me coming back to NaNoWriMo year after year after year. This year, my usual crew of Nyx, Bonetti, and Titania really stepped it up in terms of being there for everyone. Without their presence and support, I might have thrown in the towel and just accepted defeat. Without Angie (my Canadian writer friend) and our weekly phone write-ins, I would not have been encouraged by her own determination to keep chugging even when SHE thought it was over.
I’ll keep saying it as long as it’s true: We as a community are supportive, encouraging, and taskmastery. If someone is struggling, someone always has an encouraging word. If someone revels in victory, we revel right along with you. No one is in this morass alone, even when the CDC encourages us not to socially engage in person.
Thank all that is good that we live in the Internet age, when it’s possible to be social even when we have to be socially distant.
If you did NaNoWriMo this year, I hope it was as good for you as it always is for me. I hope you knocked it out of the park, but if you didn’t, that’s fine. I hope you did your best.
Whether you did NaNoWriMo or not, though, I hope you will consider joining us next year. For now I do not know what the future holds, but just based on 2020, it’s bound to be a wild ride.
Thank you for joining me on this year’s memory lane journey.