I was reading – technically, having read to me, as Ri lives in my attic – Rion’s blog post on NaNoWriMo, which made me think about my own (far shorter) experiences with it.

I can remember hearing about Nano probably a decade ago, but my first strong memory of it is my friend Qlipoth’s “why I hate nano” blog post, which is only from 2009, so I could be wrong. Either way, it “wasn’t for me.”

I can’t remember why. I really, can’t. I just didn’t think it was my thing.

I do know that in 2010, when I played along without picking a project (Just aimed to get 50K words in a month), part of my excuse is “my other projects won’t wait that long.”

What I learned that year was that 50,000 words is a totally do-able goal.

2011 I did it for real. I took a short story I’d been playing with and used it as the jumping-off point for a novel. That was The Deep Inks.

I learned that I could, indeed, write a novel, but my idea of plotting was pretty haphazard and three chapters of architectural detail was probably not a great idea.

I won. I really don’t remember much about it, but I won. The stats say I won with 50,289 on the 27th. I was inches from the climax. Still haven’t finished that thing… <.<

2012: The states say I finished on the 29th with 50,511 words (I do not like this trend!) I’m not sure how much I learned, but I did it.

The one that really got me was this summer’s Camp Nano. My goal was 43,500, and I made it on the last day of the month. But what I learned…

…I learned, gentle readers, that I like outlining. I really like writing to an outline. I like plotting ahead of time. It makes a more coherent novel. It’s just more fun.

And now we come to 2013. I’m outlining a whole new sub-setting and a new type of story. I’m pre-prepping my novel out the wazoo.

What will I learn? We’ll have to see. But I hope to have fun along the way.

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