I know it’s bad form to brag, but it’s true. I won NaNoWriMo 2019 with 55,555 words. This is win #15 in as many attempts.
This will be another long recap post. As before, if you want to skip the rest, you have the gist of it. For everyone else, let’s do this in handy chart form again:
DATE DAY’S TOTAL GOAL COUNT COUNT 11/01* 1,880 1,880 1,667 11/02* 4,190 6,070 3,334 11/03* 4,097 10,167 5,000 11/04 905 11,072 6,667 11/05 1,867 12,939 8,334 11/06 793 13,732 10,000 11/07 1,125 14,857 11,667 11/08 668 15,525 13,334 11/09* 4,257 19,782 15,000 11/10* 4,500 24,282 16,667 11/11 2,047 26,329 18,334 11/12 2,062 28,391 20,000 11/13 483 28,874 21,667 11/14 2,256 31,130 23,334 11/15 2,338 33,468 25,000 11/16* 3,820 37,288 26,667 11/17* 1,741 39,029 28,334 11/18 2,081 41,110 30,000 11/19 347 41,457 31,667 11/20 447 41,904 33,334 11/21 466 42,370 35,000 11/22 602 42,972 36,667 11/23* 328 43,300 38,334 11/24* 4,147 47,447 40,000 11/25 1,168 48,615 41,667 11/26 2,082 50,697 43,334 11/27 312 51,009 45,000 11/28* 3,074 54,083 46,667 11/29* 612 54,695 48,334 11/30* 860 55,555 50,000
*Days I did not have to JOB.
As you can see, there was no point in time that it looked like I would not hit the 50,000-word goal, in part because of how far ahead I was after Day 3. HOWEVER: I do want to point out that when I started the month, I had an Icarus moment and decided to shoot for 74,000 — to keep my annual average from slipping ever downward. There was a reason I was so far ahead at the beginning of the month: that was ON TRACK for my personal goal using Pacemaker. I asked it to give me steady words, with a bit more on weekends and a bit less on Thursdays — my normal Game Night. Eventually that plan went out the window, but I was already far enough ahead in NaNoWriMo terms that I would have had to stop writing entirely not to hit the count.
I did not finish the story. At this point in time, I don’t believe that I will. I do not like this story. At all. I think I had an interesting enough premise, but the stupid thing took enough twists and turns in the wrong direction that by the end of November I’d had enough of these characters and wanted them all to DIE already… which is saying something, because as ghosts, many of them were already dead. If I ever revisit this one, it will have to be a complete redraft. My completion track record now stands at 8 and 7. (Completed the story for just over half of the Wrimos I have participated in.) Two of those years I wrote 2 books each (100k total, too), so I have written 10 novels and 50k+ on 7 others.
This year’s effort did not break any records, either in the high daily count or low daily count, nor does it qualify as either high total count (2011) or low total count (2012).
All in all, it was not a memorable event in terms of the book. The people, on the other hand… (and I’m naming names this time.)
Titania, Nyx, and bonetti are still my favorite North Orange County peeps. (Sorry, everyone else, I love y’all too, but these three are my Crew.) And it probably seems weird to include Titania at all, because she’s actually based in London. She comes to visit us for a week or two every November just to be part of our shenanigans.
Some highlights:
MY PODCAST!
Yeah, yeah, I’m an egomaniac. Shoot me. I tried to have all of the episodes finished prior to November, but some unforeseen things stopped it from happening as planned: #1) I’m lazy. (Okay, that one was technically foreseen, but I thought I could overcome it.) #2) Editing some of the interviews proved more challenging than expected, because I wanted to remove unnecessary things (“um”, my coughs and clearings of throat, some off-topic things), but I didn’t want to take out any of the wonderful advice in the process. Plus, for each removal, I had to make sure what remained flowed. (Hence some off-topic things sticking around.) #3) I forgot how long a single episode of a podcast can take to put together.
Even so, I’m very proud of the result, and I hope it helped at least one person out there fight through some of the “don’t wanna” that can happen during NaNoWriMo.
I also want to thank everyone again who helped me do this by agreeing to be my guinea pigs — er, I mean special guests: Angie, Nyx, Karl, Anne, and Randy. Y’all made my year by agreeing to do this. I cannot thank you enough.
And thank you to anyone who listened to it.
IKEA!!
This one wasn’t going to happen this year. Our new Municipal Liaison was a bit overwhelmed by the legacy of our previous MLs and just was not up to planning everything we’ve done in the past. Luckily for us, this event sometimes draws the attention of another region, and THEIR ML reached out to ours and volunteered to spearhead it, which ours agreed to. So I have to send out hearty appreciation to JustKate, who was my ML in 2013 at the tail end of my stint in Long Beach. I finally got to see her again, and she saved my favorite write-in of the year.
TRAIN TO OCEANSIDE
Just like years past, we wrote on the train to Oceanside, had lunch at the pier, and wrote on the train back to Orange County. I got to see a couple of people who were not able to be at most of the things I went to, and there was much laughing and jibber jabber at lunch.
AQUARIUM OF THE PACIFIC
JustKate’s region invites other regions to join them at the Aquarium in Long Beach for a write-in and some education (if you want to roam the aquarium between sprints). I didn’t do much roaming, but we did go out to the shark tank to look at the sharks actually coexisting with other fishies. They were very pretty, as were the rays in the tank. I think if I ever get the chance to do this one again, I would like to walk the aquarium itself for a bit.
One running joke of this event is that, since we’re in a glass-enclosed room, whenever someone tries to enter who is not part of the event (or when some little kids put their faces to the window to see what’s going on) Kate hollers out, “We’re not fish!” This time, a few of us went out to the gift shop and got some fish hats so the kids looking for fish would find some. CJ got a shark hat (at which point I started singing, “CJ Shark Do-do-do-do-do-do” — I’m lucky to be alive), Kate got a squid hat, and I got a NARWHAL hat. When bonetti showed up later, he went out and got a squid hat as well.
I was amused.
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS
Misnamed this year, because the football field across the street from our Starbucks is undergoing some kind of renovation and is currently closed down. This is my favorite (translated: ONLY) regular weekly write-in, so it bears mentioning.
OTHER THINGS
There was a Thanksgiving write-in, which had a surprisingly high turnout. Also, because I was not horribly behind and did not have to hang out at our Starbucks venue all day Black Friday, I was able to attend what is termed on the regional calendar as “The Daily Grind” at a Dunkin Donuts. From there, Nyx took me to Dice House where we perused the 50% off Black Friday table (and I was able to pick up Choose Your Own Adventure Game #2 for half price). I met up with her again later that afternoon for Mongolian BBQ before Friday Night Lights.
This is not a highlight but a lowlight: I got sick TWICE in November. I had a cold the second week and had to cancel my appearances at most places (Game Night and FNL). Then the weekend of the Grand Californian write-in, my monthly group had our Game Day planned. But I woke up THAT day puking my guts out. Working theory is either food poisoning (somehow) or one of those 24-hour stomach bugs. Had to miss November’s Game Day but was well enough to go to IKEA the following day.
And that, dear imaginary people, was NaNoWriMo 2019 in more of a nutshell than you think.