Oh, dear.

[abateman.livejournal.com]

I was doing some math on how much I have written, how far I have to go, and how much I'd need to write to complete my novel.

I'm halfway done NaNo on the 8th and I've come to the horrifying conclusion that I would need easily more than 375,000 words to finish the first novel. Wow, great planning on my behalf.

Does anyone else think that NaNoWriMo should have different competition levels?

Comments

[nanofluffmo.livejournal.com]

Well, you can create your own goal. Me, the challenge is more finishing the story than turning out 50,000 words, though I have to do that too. Some people's goal is to write two 50,000 word novels. Some people aim for a 100,000 worder. To "win" the nano certificate, you only need 50,000, but for your own pride and/or bragging rights, you try to do what you set out to.

[abateman.livejournal.com]

That's what I did - I put out the goal of 80,000 words (2857 words a day) but, well, I suddenly realized that to get close to finishing the book, I'd have to aim closer to 12,500 words a day. Either that, or do the 80,000 words every month for 5 months.

Argh, and people wonder why I put off this story so long? (The last EIGHT years.)

[power-c.livejournal.com]

That's kind of my goal, too, but making the 50,000 would be great.

[airycat.livejournal.com]

YES! -- Over 50,000 words, over 100,00 words and multi-novels -- at least!

Can I borrow your.... aw shoot, it's not the muse. I have a muse. Can I borrow whatever it is that helps you get the words out that fast?

[abateman.livejournal.com]

It's not a muse, it's the Vodka and Pepsi, I promise.

[jupiterlullaby.livejournal.com]

Of course, if you do a wriyear (wouldn't yearwrimo be kinda contradictory, as the 'mo' is month?), then you'd only have to write 1644 words a day, as opposed to NaNoWriMo's 1667/day =D

[alison-sky.livejournal.com]

Well... one thing.

NaNo isn't a COMPETITION. It's a Challange. There's a big difference there. It's not a race, or a sport to see who wins and who loses. Everyone who tries is a winner. It's just the people who make it over 50K beat the challange.

[abateman.livejournal.com]

Unfortunatly, the only reason I joined it is because I saw it as a competition. And failure scares me more than death. Which means the only way to get myself motivated is with the threat of failing. I've been "working" on writing a book for eight years and, without the motivation or deadline, I got nowhere.

I think it really has a lot to do with my personality, and I have no problem with people seeing this as a negative aspect, even if I don't. It really makes sense that I'm in a high-stress, instant-firing type of job.

Though, there really isn't anything bad about thinking of it as a competition, is there? It's not like you'd look down on people who didn't win, you'd just look down on yourself. Well, that's my perspective, anyhow. No stress = no work.

[alison-sky.livejournal.com]

it's fine to do that if it helps you along, but it's also good to remember that alot of people are in this because they don't like competitions and they like it because it's a challange.

Everyone processes NaNo a bit differently to fit their own lives and give them the burst that they need. However, if you start to suggest changes to something, that's when you risk breaking down the structure.

There is a whole group who set 100K as a goal for NaNo because 50K is too easy for them. My roommate is already over 40K on hers as of today, while I'm just hitting 15K. Last year she didn't even finish and I won days ahead of schedule.

If I thought in a competition, I'd be so put off by now. but I don't because for me, it disuades me. But my best friend, she uses my word count as a guide to make sure she beats me. So I'll up my word count at the end of the day a few hundred more than it is, just to push her along because she thrives on competition.

And I'm rambling now, aren't I?

Ok, point. It's fine to think of it that way if it works for you, but don't expect NaNo to change it's premise wince competition isn't their POV for this.

[abateman.livejournal.com]

I hope you didn't get the impression that I thought NaNo should change in any way. I was just commenting, really, about my own personal experience so far. Really, if I had known it would have rubbed people the wrong way, I wouldn't have said anything about, and I'm sorry if it comes off like that.

The idea really came to me because of all the groups that are doing two or more NaNos, have very high goals, etc. The idea of a competition is still there in the spirit of it - you're competing with yourself, in a way, aren't you? I know that for some people, setting a higher word count to achieve would make them sit up and work harder, while others can set these goals for themselves. Just an observation, really.

And rambling is perfectly okay. When people ramble, they seem to make the most sense, in my experience. If we weren't all a little too loquacious we wouldn't be even discussing this, would we? :)

[destiny2909.livejournal.com]

This is my first NaNo, so I started off JUST hoping to reach the 50,000. Now I'm at nearly 35,000 so I'm changing my target to actually finishing the novel... Even though I'm nowhere near it!
I'll just be happy to hit the 50,000 first time around though. :)

[fshk.livejournal.com]

I'll probably hit 25K today, only the 9th! So I was thinking about upping my own goal to 75K by month's end, but I don't know if this novel is 75K words long.

I'm a municipal liaison, and in my region, we have a "writing enemies" thing going where people found an enemy on the forums and are racing them to have a higher daily wordcount. My region is also challenging another city to a wordcount challenge, with an actual prize bestowed on the winning city at the expense of the losing city. So there are definitely ways to find some real competition in the NaNoverse.

[zarkia.livejournal.com]

yep - i did that math, before november. but i came into this with the goal of 50,000 by the end of the month. i intend on having my novel finished by march or something... i don't mind the extra time.

[broadford.livejournal.com]

I completely understand where you're coming from. Crossed the 50k line today, spent a minute celebrating, and then realized with horror that I wasn't even a third of the way through my plot.

o.O

Still, here's to us finishing our novels within the month!