I have participated in NaNoWriMo since 2000, and this year marks my 12th year to successfully complete it.
During those 13 NaNos, I have completed 28 novels. Yes, I know - writing frenzy.
What have I done with those 28 novels?
Nada.
I didn't write them for you. (riff on Rocky Horror Picture Show...)
Actually, someday, I would like to maybe publish them. I think they are good stories. (I would, of course, I wrote them!)
I started doing NaNo because I do a lot of non-fiction writing, mostly write-for-hire work that never gets attributed to me. My words are scrutinized by lawyers and corporate propogandists and each word is written at someone else's behest.
For NaNo, I write the words I want to write, the ones that please me, that make my heart sing.
Best of all, I get to do it at the same time as hundreds of other people are also writing words that please them and make their hearts sing. Some of us have become friends who meet at NaNo and part when it ends, to meet again the next year -a lot like some of the conventions Itzl and I attend. We cheer one another on, commiserate when horrible things happen in our lives - one year, I had 4 friends die at different times in different parts of the country - and my NaNo acquaintances were there. Another person had a seriously scary encounter with a cable installer and we were there for her - and made the cable installer a character in all our novels, killing him off in highly creative ways. Another lost her husband during NaNo and we were there for her - she didn't win that year, but she made it through and the following year, when the first anniversary of his death arrived, we were there for her again, and now it's been a few years and she's much better, winning NaNo again. And those are just a few of the things that make NaNo worth participating in.
And I get to do it with T-shirts, totebags, stickers, badges, and other bits of fun bling.
All around, it's a win-win-win situation.
Even if I had never once won NaNo, the mere act of connecting with these people, of befriending them in however a minor way, of being able to watch some of the young ones grow and mature into their lives and their words, just the social aspects of NaNo make it worth it each year.
I always donate to the cause, so I sport the little halo each year.
I like being a tiny frog in a pond, and I enjoy pond-hopping, so I can be a tiny frog in a lot of ponds. DKos is one such pond, as is FB, and LJ, and OctopodiCon, and SoonerCon, and FenCon, and FotL, and all the other things I do. Tiny frog, croaking merrily off in my corner of the pond, having fun.
And poor Itzl just tags along, rolling his eyes and making snide comments, keeping me alive when I am oblivious to the sounds that signal danger.