As I was coming across the winner's tape I wondered to myself if NaNo is really worth it anymore. The 50K number is so arbitrary and is painfully less than I need for a full novel. Toe the Line is about 75K and it's shorter than the second one due out in June, On the Edge, which is 92K.
Secondly, working on editing and re-writing last years entry, Vapor Trail, has shown me that the amount of revising and rewriting is a gargantuan undertaking where whole chapters are sometimes thrown out and completely redone.
All that being said, NaNo does do one thing positive and that is that it gives me a goal and a time limit. The last time I undertook writing a novel without NaNo I came away with a story that might have had more polished writing but had far far less substance. Additionally it petered out and I lost interest after about 25K words. NaNo doesn't let the author peter out and quit as easily.
There were several instances in this NaNo go round when I thought that the story was such a mess that I should stop altogether I didn't. I'm glad I didn't. The writing might be rough and many of the sub-plots and avenues I'd hoped to explore didn't get fleshed out properly, but the main storyline actually came through okay. It wasn't what I expected it to be when I started but I feel confident that with some massaging I could have something good.
Also, I found that the last 500 words or so were just notes to myself about sub-plots I wanted to include but didn't get the time to, and notes on characters where I thought of ways to make them more engaging or intriguing. There was a lot more that came up over the course of writing that I hadn't expected and didn't have time to include. All positive I think.
It's a good exercise, NaNoWriMo in that now I have five or so (extremely) rough drafts in my novel library that with some hard work can (hopefully) become much better.
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