Uh-oh. Anybody see the date today? It’s November 30, or in other words, the last day of NaNoWriMo. And my novel so far only consists of 17,069 words, a long way short of the NaNo goal of 50,000 words in a month.

I think we can all safely assume that I’m not going to come up with 32,931 words in the next twelve hours or so. So this year, rather than being a NaNoWriMo winner as I was last year, I guess you’d have to call me a NaNoWriMo loser!

So where’s your list of excuses for failing NaNoWriMo?

I guess the traditional post here should include a long list of reasons (also known as excuses) for why I wasn’t able to achieve this goal this time round. And trust me, I have a really long list of excuses in my head. But I’ll spare them from you and look to the future instead.

First of all, there’s not law that says you have to finish your NaNoWriMo novel during November. Well, I don’t get any pretty badges for my website, but I still have a third of a novel and lots of ideas on how to continue writing it. I did a few calculations and found out that if I continued writing it at the same rate, I would reach 50,000 words in another 39 days. That’s not so terrible, really, but since the next 39 days includes a two-week holiday over east I’ll be generous with myself and set a new goal: to finish this draft by 31 January, 2009. That still gives me four months to edit and revise it if I decide to enter it in the Australian/Vogel award in May next year.

Second, it should be said that I’m happier with the quality of this draft than with last year’s NaNoWriMo draft. There are a lot more passages of “beautiful writing” in it (well, at least half way to being beautiful) and I felt a lot more creative while writing it. In fact, I think this had a spin-off effect into many other areas of my writing and I’ve got new and creative ideas running all over the place for different kinds of writing that I’d like to get stuck into soon.

Maybe there are no NaNoWriMo losers

Everyone’s a winner! There are just different kinds of winners. Some people are winners because they completed their 50,000 words during November. Others are winners because they found friends on the NaNoWriMo forums who they can talk to about their writing. And others are winners because they’ve got a good start to a novel and tonnes of other creative ideas. (Yeah, that last one’s me).

PS: Last week Dustin at The Writer’s Technology Companion posted an interview he did with me about NaNoWriMo. One of my answers in this interview probably gives another good reason for falling short on NaNot his year, when he asked me how I managed my time during November and I answered – “badly”! Still true this year too.