NaNoGoals – What are yours?

I have given up all pretense of having much other than NaNoWriMo on my mind this month.

Yesterday I talked about the different NaNoPersonas I’ve encountered in this, my first year of NaNoWriMo.

Today I am going to talk about the different goals we all have and how they may differ from the beginning of our journey along the NaNoWriMo path and the end of it.

So, we have the traditional goal of 50,000 words in 30 days. This is the “line” we must all toe to get those much-wanted green bars on the status page of NaNoWriMo.org.

But how many of you have noticed the many differing goals you’ve already seen from other NaNo participants?

Many people doing NaNo this year are shooting for 100,000 words.
Why? Good question. I’m not really sure. In my opinion, 50,000 is hard enough for most of us.

However, on that note I should point out my own personal goal. As a “writer” who is more concerned with the content of the novel itself rather than the number of words, I actually feel that my novel will need at least 70,000 words to be “finished” so that is my own personal goal. And I am not the only one going for a goal like that. I’ve seen a lot of other participants say on their page that they are aiming for 60,000 or 70,000 or even 80,000 to properly finish their story.

And a good friend of mine (Donna) and her daughter (Rachel) are actually aiming for 55,000. Why just over the 50K, you ask. Well, first they are using two different computers. My friend has a Mac and her daughter uses an HP laptop (like me. YAY!). They are also using two different word processing programs to write their books in and they have discovered as they switch back and forth to help each other, that the programs count words differently. So they are very wisely aiming for just over the 50K mark to compensate for the possibility that they will plug in their finished novel on November 30th and find that they do not have enough words.

OH THE HORROR!

Who hadn’t thought of that? I know it never occurred to me. YIKES! Well, I tell you this, if I don’t hit the 70,000 word goal I’ve personally set, I’m going to still aim for at least 55K just to be on the safe side myself.

Now onto the changes I’ve noticed in starting goals and the (possibly) changing goals as we near the finish line.

Well first we’ll talk about the changes in my own goals. I started the month aiming for 70,000 words written in November. While that is still my goal for this story , it has extended beyond the month of November. First, I plan to edit later so the word count will change then, I’m sure. Second, I have found that getting to 50,000 words in 30 days is no easy task, much less 70K. So I will be thrilled to get to 50K by the end of the month (well 55K anyway. LOL). And I imagine I am not the only one who has changed their word count goal for these reasons.

Some other reasons I have seen in the forums…

I’ve seen several people who have already hit their 50K goal and they’ve decided, instead of just sitting out the rest of the challenge or editing, to continue writing.

GOOD FOR YOU!

I’ve also noticed several people whose stories have changed drastically since they started writing and these people’s goals go both ways. Some are adding words to their goal, some taking away. And I applaud them as well for continuing on the always changing adventure writing can be.

Whatever your goals may be, I hope you are doing well on your NaNoNovel and I hope you all hit your goal by November 30th! But whatever your goals or how they may or may not have changed…

KEEP WRITING!