NaNoWriMo - the Final Days (& Stats & Post Card #3)

2012 Winner!

VICTORY DANCE TIME! 

That's right, people! I won NaNoWriMo for the fourth year in a row! And guess what my final wordcount is??

53,191 words!!!!!!!!

Yes, you read that correctly. I am almost two days of quotas ahead in this year's NaNoWriMo challenge. (Disclaimer: Some of these words were re-typed from my blog posts, journals, and a few old papers I wrote. I still wrote thousands of original words this month though and I'm proud of all that I have accomplished.)

My last postcard -- homemade
and absolutely adorable!
Thanks, Tessa :)

Sad part? I still have 1.5 years of my life to document. My goal is to be completely done with the first draft of this project by Christmas day.

Stats for this year's NaNoWriMo:
Most words written in one day: around 5,000 words
Least amount of words written in one day: 0 (this happened twice... one of those days being today)
Cups of coffee consumed this month: I would say at least 60 (2/day). Some days I had zero, most days I had 2-5 cups. Yeah, I'm addicted.
Hours of music played while noveling: 0 (yup, did this NaNo fairly quietly)
Number of different places I wrote: 2 (my room and the school room...)
Post cards exchanged: 3 (this was super cool!)
Level of fun had writing this month on a 1 to 10 scale: 5,342,918

Thanks for a great year, everyone! Mom, Dad, sisters, family, friends... y'all are all awesome!
I have several friends participating this year. Some won, others didn't quite make it. I'm proud of them all and it's just cool to be participating together and supporting each other. Writers of the world, unite! :)

Last, but not least...

30 days. 53,191 words. NaNoWriMo 2012 winner.

NaNoWriMo Day 28

Just a quick update to say...

2,000 words. Two days. Two chapters.

That's all I have left. The only thing holding me back from winning is the Rapture. No joke.

Okay, that is all. And if you haven't captioned the photo in my post below, do it!!!

NaNoWriMo Day 27

My caption: "The right way to write."
Colleen's caption: "Burning the midnight oil!"
What's YOUR caption?

Word count goal for today: 45,000 words
Total word count as of today: 46,667 words
Words ahead: 1,667 words (exactly one day's quota)
46,667th words: Virginia (talking about taking Kelsey to college :))
Days remaining this month: three!
Words left to write to reach 50k: 3,333 words!

It's been an awesome day. I had classes all day, took a walk on my lunch break, watched about an hour of High School Musical (don't judge.), and then wrote! I'm only two day's of word quota away from the 50,000 word finish line! I'm hoping to write a quota in each of the three remaining days though just so I can get more info in there. Who knew writing about yourself could be so easy =P It's been an awesome month!

NaNoWriMo Day 26

Okay, my stats:

Word count goal for today: 43,333 words
Total word count at the end of today: 45,535 words
Words ahead: 2,202

That's. Amazing. No seriously -- I'm not sure if I've ever been that ahead in NaNoWriMo. I always seem to be right on track or a little behind.

But let me admit to you why I'm ahead and you might not be so impressed...

All of the words in that word count are, indeed, my original words. Well, I've quoted Mom's journal occasionally, but most of it is indeed mine. However, some of those words I've written in the past. Like, before this November. *gasp* I know. I'm typing up some journal entries or picking excerpts from my blogs to include in my novel. I've done this particularly the past two days because I was a heavy journalist (journaler?) and blogger during the years I am writing about.

But I have two good reasons for using past words in my auto-bio:

1. Those source documents, so to speak, are the best way to tell my story. Rather than re-telling about my trip to Mt. Rushmore, wouldn't I rather record some of the thoughts I wrote down in my journal four years ago from the day I was actually there? The second choice sounds better to me. In fact, that's exactly what I did. And by re-reading and typing up those journal entries, I was reminded of the actual timeline of that trip. I would have had it all jumbled up if I'd tried to write that trip from memory. After typing up the journal entries, I expanded my thoughts and details with some original words.

2. I want to have a unified record of my journal/blog entries. (I consider my blogs to be public journals.) Let's pretend my house burns down, the internet completely crashes, or I'm an old woman who can't remember a thing about her life. Wouldn't you want your life story all in one, handy-dandy book that you could just grab and go or read through on a whim. If I lost my pictures or journals or if my blogs suddenly disappeared from the internet, I want at least one hard copy of all the highlights.

So, I am using words I've written before. But big deal. I am adding thousands and thousands of more words, original words from this month, to the stockpile. In just a little over three days, I'll have a masterpiece that I'll call my first 18 years.