The short and simple answer is: tried to write for at least an hour or two every day. If you keep up a steady pace you need to write 1,667 words per day to meet the target.
The more realistic answer is that, yes, I tried to do that, but I was sick at two different points and frequently busy and/or distracted, so I sort of wrote in wildly varying spurts, some days not at all, and other days 2,000, 3,000 or even 5,000 words. 7,000 on the last day, actually.
I also did not, like a sensible person would have, do all my outlining and research and planning ahead of time. You are allowed to do that before November 1, as long as you don't start writing any of the actual manuscript until then. But no, I did only a minimal amount of planning and no research until a few days into November, at which point, having recovered enough from Norovirus to be functional but not enough to leave the house for anything other than really important errands (plus, I was still potentially contagious), I started doing massive amounts of planning, outlining, character sketches, etc. I think I was almost a week into November when I started on the actual manuscript.
So really, I pretty much wrote like a crazy person, more days than not, although I did miss a few here and there. Being sick may have actually helped, since it meant I was housebound at various points.
And the weird thing is - while the Toronto NaNo group had a "TGIO" (Thank God It's Over) party tonight, I am in no way glad it's over. I would happily keep writing at that pace for the rest of my life, if I was reasonably assured I could still pay the rent and what not (I have to admit, it did cut into paying work time a fair bit, not to mention sleep time). It's made me realize I really need to rearrange my life to make writing more of a priority, and working on being able to actually make at least some money from it, so that I can justify diverting part of my work time to that.
The more realistic answer is that, yes, I tried to do that, but I was sick at two different points and frequently busy and/or distracted, so I sort of wrote in wildly varying spurts, some days not at all, and other days 2,000, 3,000 or even 5,000 words. 7,000 on the last day, actually.
I also did not, like a sensible person would have, do all my outlining and research and planning ahead of time. You are allowed to do that before November 1, as long as you don't start writing any of the actual manuscript until then. But no, I did only a minimal amount of planning and no research until a few days into November, at which point, having recovered enough from Norovirus to be functional but not enough to leave the house for anything other than really important errands (plus, I was still potentially contagious), I started doing massive amounts of planning, outlining, character sketches, etc. I think I was almost a week into November when I started on the actual manuscript.
So really, I pretty much wrote like a crazy person, more days than not, although I did miss a few here and there. Being sick may have actually helped, since it meant I was housebound at various points.
And the weird thing is - while the Toronto NaNo group had a "TGIO" (Thank God It's Over) party tonight, I am in no way glad it's over. I would happily keep writing at that pace for the rest of my life, if I was reasonably assured I could still pay the rent and what not (I have to admit, it did cut into paying work time a fair bit, not to mention sleep time). It's made me realize I really need to rearrange my life to make writing more of a priority, and working on being able to actually make at least some money from it, so that I can justify diverting part of my work time to that.
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