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Camp Nanowrimo BadgeI learned about NaNoWriMo during my orientation for college back in 2009. I loved the idea of it and decided I was going to participate in that from then on. Not only would I be shooting out story after story, there would be will plenty of books for me to edit and publish by time I graduated college.

Or so I thought.

For those of you who don’t know, NaNoWriMo means Nation November Writing Month. You basically use the month of November to write 50k words for a novel or a series of short stories. The “rules” of NaNoWriMo are the following:

  • You must start your novel from scratch. Don’t work on your current projects. “Outlines and plot notes are very much encouraged, and can be started months ahead of the actual novel-writing adventure. Previously written prose, though, is punishable by death.”
  • You should be the one writing the novel, not passing it off to a friend.
  • No copying and pasting
  • Upload your word count between 11/25 -11/30
  • It must be fiction

You can find more information and rules here

My first NaNoWriMo experience was great. I came up with an idea, outlined it, planned it out, and everything. However, I ended up changing stories at the last minute since if I were going to start busting out these books, I wanted to give credit to the four characters that helped start my love for writing novels. I thought I’d do it by writing their story first. That was my first NaNoWriMo novel.

I barely finished. I procrastinated, I had tests, I did homework, and I was social over Thanksgiving Break- come on, it’s Thanksgiving. So here’s my first confession.

It was the last day of NaNoWriMo. I’m pretty sure it was raining that night. I had four or so hours to write around 7k words. After listening to my friends, I decided to abandon the homework I had and work on this story. I wasn’t sure if I could finish in time, but I wrote anyway. As time was ticking away, ended up I coping and pasting two phrases, “Fight me” and “I love you.” I tried justifying it by adding

“CharacterA’s eyes widened and then she knew that CharacterB had lost it.”
And
“She wanted to say that many times, but she also didn’t want to drive him crazy.”

I knew you can get away with writing some pretty whacked up drafts, but I think I took it a little too far. Nonetheless, I finished on time- around 5- 15 minutes to spare- and I finished the story. That was the last time I copied and pasted words for NanoWrimo.

In April, 2010, I participated in Script Frenzy and wrote my first play. That was pretty fun. It still needs a lot of work and editing.

I also decided to write my original 2009 NaNoWriMo, which I’ll refer to as Co3 from now on during November. Now, I was excited for this. This was an idea that had been haunting me for years. Best of all, I did all the work the year before. I just needed to find my notes and then write. So that’s what I did. I got my 50k- and without “cheating.” Everything was great, except I didn’t finish this new one as planned. “No worries,” I thought. “I’m halfway through, I’d finish it by summer.

What I didn’t tell you guys was that I already had a novel I’ve been working on since 2007. The point of these NaNoWriMos was to give me a quick break from that novel, feel the joy/pain of working on something new, go back to my original story, and edit the other stuff later. So now I had two projects on my hands.

Needless to say, I didn’t finish Co3 by the end of my sophomore year, and that, dear readers, caused me to cheat once again…

I didn’t want another unfinished novel because then I’d have three projects, which is madness. So, in 2011, I worked on Co3 for both Camp NaNoWrimo- write 50k words during one of he summer months- and NaNoWriMo. Not only did I fail to reach 50k words, I didn’t finish the stupid story

In 2012, I had two finished novels I didn’t want to publish and two unfinished manuscripts that were a complete mess.  It was ridiculous for me. So, I decided it was time to crack down. I participated in both the summer sessions of Camp NaNoWriMo. In June, I pretty much rewrote part one of my original novel since it needed a lot of work anyway, and it was the first time in years I put in the time and effort it deserved. I got my 50k in and got to where I wanted to be for that story. In August, I was sure I was going to finish Co3. I knew I had at least 100 pages left. Back in 2011, I could taste it’s ending. So I worked hard on it and I wrote and wrote and wrote. I got my 50k words. I still didn’t finish the story.

November 2012 came around; I had to make a choice.

Work on my original novel I started back in 2007.

Finish Co3 once and for all.

Start a new project and count it as work for school.

Things weren’t going as planned for me for my capstone project. People in the English Department were concerned I, who pretty much wanted to do three animation projects using Kinetic Typography, wasn’t putting the same amount of hours as one writing a seventy-page research project. I didn’t want to count my original novels towards it because I, unfortunately, am picky with my music. Since I’d use NaNoWriMo to pretty much write the endings for my projects, if I counted it towards my school project, I’d pretty much be animating spoilers. I was not okay with that. So I decided to be insane and start a new project.

Needless to say, I didn’t finish that story and I didn’t get my 50k words.

I pretty much had three huge projects on my hands with little to no time to work on them. When I did have the time, I either slept or vegged out. I officially became the writer who has all these ideas, and who starts all these stories, but does not finish anything- at least during the times I planned. I won’t even talk about the “short stories” I started.

Finally, here we are, 2013. Back in April, I didn’t even attempt to do any NaNoWriMo projects. I focused on trying to graduate and finish up my school projects. However, by time July came around, I recuperated from the insanity I went through back in April. I knew if I didn’t finish Co3 during Camp NaNoWriMo, I was just lazy. I had probably around 20 or so pages left. I didn’t think I could stretch it out to 50k words. Besides, at that point, Co3 was over 450 pages single-spaced unless there was dialogue. So, I decided to aim for writing 20k words. I didn’t reach the goal, but I was okay with that because I finished the novel at last. I wanted to write some extra scenes to give help develop one of my characters, but once I wrote “Co3 End” I was done and it felt so good. One crazy long manuscript down. Two to go.

For this November, I will be writing the ending to the novel I started back in 2007. I read the rewrite earlier this year, but I haven’t written anything new for it in years. So, I think it’s about time to bring this novel back and finish it- only it won’t really be finished since I still have another two books for it in the deep recesses of my mind.

It’s kind of sad though. I have all these ideas formulating in my mind and I want to write these stories, but I need to start finishing these projects. Besides, I don’t only have to write during NaNoWrimo. Hopefully, I’ll start finishing these manuscripts so I can move on and write new stories. Ah, so much to do, so little time.

So there you have it, my NaNoWriMo history and confessions. I’ve been and still am breaking the rules.

Thanks for reading! Are any of you guys NaNoWriMo “cheaters” or “rebels”?