3,073,176,540.
That’s the total word count for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) 2011.
This November, hundreds of thousands of people signed on to write a 50K-word novel in 30 days—and thousands reached the finish line.
In NaNoWriMo’s Shoutouts forum, 1,237 people have written today to celebrate their 50K-word victories.
“I definitely didn’t think I could make it. I actually had to hide the word counter so I wouldn’t compulsively check my word count every ten minutes,” wrote one winner.
Around midnight in each timezone, Twitter was abuzz with winners’ jubilation, according to Topsy. Between Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, “nanowrimo” was tweeted over 4,000 times.
@NaNoWordSprints, an enthusiastic account that isn’t affiliated with the NaNoWriMo creators, sent encouragement as the deadline neared in each timezone and attempted to congratulate every winner.
“Wow!! The winners are rolling in. I’m RT-IMF the ones I catch, but if I miss one, YOU ARE ALL AWESOME!!!” the account tweeted.
NaNoWriMo’s founders, the Office of Letters and Light, said they have yet to calculate the full winner statistics. On their blog, they revisited the humble origin of NaNoWriMo and celebrated the end of 30 Covers in 30 Days, where designers made covers for 30 lucky novelists.
Aspiring author Jennifer Johnson, who the Daily Dot interviewed on Nov. 1., said she didn’t finish her novel due to schoolwork. But Johnson managed to reach 25K words—a feat that’s still worth celebrating. She credits NaNoWriMo’s culture of mutual encouragement for even getting that far.
“I know I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I did without the help of my writer friends,” Johnson said. “We raced against each other and always had words of encouragement when one of us was feeling down. I may not have won, but it was the best NaNoWriMo I’ve done.”
Photo by nImAdestiny
