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It depends on what kind of writer you are. NaNoWriMo doesn't have anything to do with it. Some people are "pants" or "discovery" writers. Whether they write the whole thing in a month or a year or...
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#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/14459 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
It depends on what kind of writer you are. NaNoWriMo doesn't have anything to do with it. Some people are "pants" or "discovery" writers. Whether they write the whole thing in a month or a year or a decade, they sit and type to see what happens. Some people are plotters. Again, the amount of time they spend to get a word count is irrelevant; they have to have structure first before creating. Discovery writers _must_ treat the first round of edits as part of the writing process, because it's dang near impossible to create something perfectly plotted with great character development on the first shot. Beyond that, however you write and finish your book is up to you. Discovery writing is no more or less practical for NaNoWriMo than plotting. I'm a plotter, and discovery writing is like pulling fingernails for me. I would trash 98% of what I did if I was just spewing logorrhea all month. But I know people who find pre-plotting to be like watching paint dry.