A NaNoWriMo roundup from years past

ByJason O'Donnell

NaNoWriMo-General-Flyer

 

Recently my “secret” for coming up with blog topics was discovered: I base most entries on conversations in which I am asked for an opinion, answer, or guidance. In those conversations I realize the information is often beneficial to more than just the individual with whom I’m talking, and thus a blog post is born. This, my friends, is one such post:

I was discussing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) with a friend who is going to be undertaking the challenge. Naturally I had some advice and words of encouragement, and recalled a few blog posts from years past when I tracked my own progress through the month-long challenge. I figured those may be helpful in some way… so, in tribute to the upcoming 2013 edition of NaNoWriMo, in which many people will be endeavouring to write their own 50k word novel in thirty days, I’ve rounded up my old NaNoWriMo posts.

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From my 2008 attempt:

From my 2011 attempt:

Keep in mind as you read through the above posts, I was blogging in-stream while also trying to write 1600+ words per day. Transitioning from stream-of-conscious word-count focused writing to more structured and self-edited blogging was difficult, and it shows in the disjointed posts. Let that in itself be a lesson: writing that much every day is not a small task, but still, it can be done… even while maintaining a 40-60 hour work week and still being somewhat social.

And for those curious, no I won’t be undertaking NaNoWriMo this year… but, I will be making a more concerted effort to use the month to focus on some other writing that I want to accomplish. Using the NaNoWriMo structure as motivation may help me actually get some old goals moving forward.

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image credit: (c) 2013  NaNoWriMo.org

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