Remember Remember, the Joys of November

Excuse the sneaky little V for Vendetta reference there, it just had to happen ok? Well today is December 3rd and it's time for me to look back on my favourite month. This hasn't always been this way, I still remember 2010, which was horrible. Ever since then though, every November is just predestined to be awesome

The first thing shouldn't be a novelty on this side. Since 2011, November is my favourite month cause of NaNoWriMo. Yes, December is cool cause of Christmas, and in March is my birthday, but the month long joy/stress/awesomeness of writing a novel isn't to be topped by anything else, sorry. This year was stressful in many ways. I wasn't sure about participating due to an absolute lack of plot. At the start of October I didn't feel like I was prepared at all. Then the month went on and still, absolute blankness in my head. A couple of days before NaNo started I went back to the forums, just to be sucked into the crazy once more. It's hard to quit when you see others getting prepared. On the 31th October I had this rough idea of a girl on a zeppelin, on the way to the colonies. Kind of steam-punk, also maybe including the early history of New Orleans and the Casquette-Girls. Instead of plotting more, I drew the characters, so when the hour struck, I was absolutely helpless, but still ready to fight.

I might not be very good at drawing, but I enjoyed this for sure

I set myself many different goals through the month. One was as always to win by the 15th, so I could do Uni stuff that I was required to do during the second half. As most of my plans, that didn't work out. It wasn't helpful that I do have a demanding social live, a conference at my church on the second weekend, a weekend-long trip to Germany during the third  and work and a housewarming party on the fourth, plus two papers due on the fifth. Throughout the week I had to go to classes obviously, also we had this project going on at work that had to be done by the and of November. No writing time there either. Oh, and may I add the time spend with friends chilling and the birthday surprise party we threw for the flatmate? The more I think of it the more astonished I get on how on earth I even considered winning it.

In addition to that, as ever year we had chat-rooms. Like last year my time was spend in two of them for the most. The swissnanos and the Burmingham-Westmidlands, as we made friends there last year. The good thing were the people who are all completely utterly bonkers.

The bad thing was, how to focus when there is so much funny things going on there too?In addition to a life at uni and a life at home, I also had to deal with an online life. That is lovely on the one hand side, but it is not helpful when trying to squeze words out of your brain. Though I have to add that I would've never made it to the finish-line without these nutters supporting me and cheering for me to keep going.

Jup you read it right. I did not make it by the 15th, but by 11 o'clock on the 30th November, I hit 50'000 words. The last weekend was the worst. I still was around 15 k away and I had two papers to hand in. That meant having to pull through two all-nighters, one keeping me up till 4 am, the other till 5 am. I can't speak for the quality of my papers, but they were handed in in time, which was all that mattered to me then. On Sunday, I broke my highest amount of words in a day, which now is 8,9 k. My computer crashed which almost lead to me losing more than 5k words (I was able to fix it and only lose 700, but those 5 mins where terrifying). Special thanks to two insomniacs at this point, it was an honour having you with me during those nights.


This year was my hardest battle for winning NaNo so far. I present to you the stats of someone, who really overestimated them self, but fought till the end. I might also add, that this is only the second year for me to win with working on one story only. One is allowed to work on multiple projects and add the words, but that is considered rebelling. So instead of winning on the 15th, I won without rebelling this year, which makes me proud too. My story is a mess and I'm not even anywhere near a good point to finish, but NaNo this year was a true blast. Thanks to the #swissingham people, you are crazy in the best ways. Thanks to the purple elephants, thanks to the Brummies and the Swissnanos.

Oh, and sorry for all the people that were cut short this month, or for everyone that had to work with me. It was not easy, I try to focus on real live this month though (and all the tests, yay) .

Once again, NaNoWriMo for me means being crazy. I have a lot of madness inside of me and I try to push it down for 335 day of the year, 30 days of just forgetting about that makes me feel the happiest I can be. Having a story that came in your mind last minute? No problem. A new character you never planned? Sure. Bloody vampires out of nowhere? What has to happen happens. Of course in that process I get sad and confused and frustrated, but once again, all I can say is that I love love love it and if you ask me, I would do it again in no time, cause it is simply worth it to me.

Well that was my November experience, stressful but worth it. Sometimes it is just really nice to have something you can always look forward to. Is there there something like that for you too?

Cheerio.