I have successfully Conquered Camp NaNoWriMo!

My Goal: 50,000 words

My Final Count: 60,674

What I Learned:

I actually can manage to do it all.  Not only did I exceed my word count this month, but I didn’t make my husband a NaNo-Widower (that’s  first actually…), I spent time with friends, I hung out with my parents while in town during the week, I made every Tuesday write-in (we started in November and just never stopped…), and I managed to edit my friend’s doctoral desertion twice (once for content and once for formatting).  And that was one really long sentence.

So basically, I learned that 50k a month is actually a sustainable amount of writing.  I’ve seen myself pull off 25k in a week (sometimes less) and 100k or more in a month, but that was a bit all consuming.  It’s good to know that I can get things done, get words written, and still manage to read a bit and watch a few episodes of good TV, and not stress about time ‘wasted’ working on my day job (it does pay the bills after all).

I’m proud of myself this month over all, even though it’s my second lowest NaNo total word count of four consecutive attempts at 50k.

For anyone keeping track, this is the final master list of all the badges I earned this month:

Goed Begonnen     -     Start Writing!

Swimming Lessons     -     Write 10k over the course of 1 Camp

Half Gewonnen     -     Write 25k over the course of 1 Camp

Blue Arrow     -     Write 40k over the course of 1 Camp

Horseshoes and Hand-Grenades- Write 49k over the course of 1 Camp

The Big Kahuna     -     Write 50k over the course of 1 Camp

Double Or Nothing     -     Write 3334 words on the first day of a Camp

Non-stop     -     Write for 1 hour without stopping

Bronze Fingertips     -     Write 5k in 1 Day

Late at Night     -     Write last thing before going to bed

Mid-day Meal     -     Write during your lunch-break or while eating lunch

Break Time     -     Write during breaks from work/chores/homework or between classes, requires you get back to what you are supposed to be doing

Sprinter Winner     -     Win After Being 5k Ahead

Who Told You I Was Paranoid?     -     Have at least 5 back-ups of your novel

Constant Paranoia- Back-up Everyday

Modern     -     Write at least 1000 words on a computer or other electronic device

Brat Camp     -     Rebel! For at least 1000 words

I’ll be putting up another post just after this one with another glimpse into the novel I wrote so many words of this month.  The grand total for the whole novel is over 122k now, and this comes from the portion written prior to April, but I like it, so I’ll share it with you here.