impossible?

Try it. What do you have to lose?

When I'm writing on my own, I tend to take my time finishing a novel draft (over a year). I've done NaNo three times so far and hit the 50K each time. Those drafts aren't finished, but the accelerated pace forced me to keep the momentum going on the storyline. I learned valuable lessons from each attempt.

So give it a shot. Good luck!

I understand! I'm a slow writer, too, and am using Nano to just join the fun and participate in the challenge of boosting my word count.

Yes, try it.

I've never written a novel before, much less than 50K words in 30 days. I've always been a writer at heart and it's been so many years since I have written, but I'm giving it a shot. I'm having a lot of fun especially talking with the people on this forum, doing word wars, commenting back and forth on other people's blogs about NaNo.

Like TheIT says: "What have you have to lose?"

IT:
I love your Nano-cat pic.

Gogirl said:

IT:
I love your Nano-cat pic.

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Isn't that great? Thank dclary:

"Free NaNocatz Word Counter"
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120840

It's not that hard, really, if you break it down to smaller chunks. With an Arial 12 font, one page is about 500 words. You need to write a little more than three pages every day to make it. You could do one page in the morning, one in the afternoon and one before going to bed. One page every now and then doesn't sound as bad as 1667 words in one day, does it?

KC36 said:

I guess I just need some words of motivation

-Karla

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Only two words for you, Karla: Go you!

Join us in the word wars. I took years to write my first novel. This one's going much faster, because I've got friends over in the word wars thread who are pushing me to my utmost capabilities.

KC36 it sounds like you are a careful writer. I have been writing Twisted Oaks for more than two years now, and only about half way through. I do NaNo strictly as an exercise in mad creativity. Speed is everything. My NaNo's first chapter started out just as good as anything else I write, but the plot is rocking along like a rickety old passenger train, nuance, detail, and character building is out the window...theme and subtext are still sitting back at the station.

You can do it! Let your hair down and let it flow!

In Rocky, Rocky Balboa didn't think he could beat Apollo Creed either.

And, well, ok, he didn't.

But he sure tried!

Go for it!

I am still writing a novel I started 10 years ago and succeeded at NaNo last year BEFORE the 30th. Yes, you can do it!!

I was terrified the first time I did NaNo. I'm now doing it for the fifth time, and I've succeeded in the four previous attempts. Each time, I've hit 50,000 about a week before the 30th, and that's even with working full time and 40-minute bus rides to and from work!

KC, you're absolutely right about one thing: If you walk away from this having written more than you would have without NaNo, then you've still won. I'll expand that a bit, though, to add a few things: If you walk away from NaNo having had fun while writing, discovering more about yourself as a writer and what works for you as well as what doesn't, or you've discovered that it just doesn't work for you, you're still further ahead and you've still won. The 50k word count is really just a bonus.

I think it's worth a try It works on those rusty writing muscles and just lets you have fun. The beauty of NaNo is that you can go crazy and it's perfectly ok!

I did NaNo for the first time last year, and I had no clue how far I would get.
I ended up with 72,000.

This year, I first thought, nah, I don't want to go through that again. But I did, and even more, I decided to write two NaNo novels, to go for a total of 100,000.
And guess what: I'm right on target to get there.

So go for it, maybe there's no publication or no cash prize at the end, but there's enormous satisfaction even if you only finished 10,000 words.

My last WIP is not completely done yet. I worked on it for a year and about 3 months. I split it into 2 novels, realizing a sub plot had morphed into another novel. So they were written more slowly-- Now, a really funny thing I am finding out is that they are all the Same Novel. I will never get published at this rate.
The NaNo novel I am doing now is still in the same "world" as my other 2.
In a time line, The first happens in 1968, the second in 1970, my wip 1973.

Anyway--- that dosent take away from the fact that I just got in the groove right away with this one. This story is like "the Hobbit" compared to The Lord of the Rings.