The Party is Over

Well, I’m done. And good riddance to NewNoWriMo.

It has been a lot of fun, and I appreciate all the effort my fellow writers put into our collective efforts, but it was a lot of work.

I shouldn’t complain though. I reached my goal of 17,400 words! Better yet, I finished the third episode of my Ghost Stories series and I started the fourth episode and I even got a bit done on a (newish) short story.

Here’s yesterday’s tally:

I managed to write 2,611 words (in one day!)
which brought my monthly total to 17,470.
I finished the 3rd episode at 16,777 words,
so I started on the next episode. I only got in about 294 words of that when I realized I really need to sit and think about it a bit before writing much more.
So, I started working on a short story, adding 399 words to it.

So, even though I’m glad to see it end, NewNoWriMo worked! It really did help to make a big event out of setting a goal and seeing it to completion with you. At least, this whole process helped me. I hope it helped you, too.

So, what’s next?

Good question.

But before we get to that, how about some stats? I love stats.

Collectively, eleven participants wrote 95,763 words during NewNoWriMo. Not bad. If we put all our stuff together, it would be a perfectly sized novel.
The lowest word count was 0. We won’t name names.
The most words written by one person was 25,491. Way to go Daniel! Not only did he write the most during NewNoWriMo, he reported the completion of an episode in his series and he started on another project. Woohoo!
Joe surpassed his goal by 39.7%. I wonder if he sold himself short in the beginning? Next month, reach for more!
Both Daniel and Joe managed to write every single day of NewNoWriMo – 29 days of writing. I’m most impressed by this. I only managed to write on 19 days.

We also had six write-a-thon sessions via Google Hangouts. These were a lot of fun. Though not all the “haberdashery” participates were also NewNoWriMo participates, we all managed to work together towards our goals. Many thanks to: Katrina Robinson (speed demon), Sean Betzer, Victor K, Jonathon Laidlow, and Johann Thorsson. It was great hosting you all and I hope we get to do it again very soon.

Now…to answer that question…what’s next?

Prizes

Yup, I promised prizes. Here they are:

Professionally designed e-book cover
$50 Amazon Gift Certificate
A box of chocolates or a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate (your choice)

And the winners are…well…that’s the hard part. You see, other than Joe and I (the instigators of all this and not eligible to win) only one other person successfully completed NewNoWriMo:

Daniel Ausema

So, instead of a random drawing, Daniel wins the lot – except for the box of chocolates. That goes to Jon Laidlow for preserving through a terrible incident. Thanks so much for sticking with it, Jon. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.

I’ll be contacting the winners soon to make arrangements. In the meantime, take a break. But don’t abandon all the work you managed to write during NewNoWriMo. There’s still all the editing to do!