NaNoWriMo 2013 - the blood, sweat and almost tears

After my previous (albeit very successful) NaNoWriMo, I decided never to punish myself that way again. What was I thinking? This year was worse!

And the punishment had nothing to do with the word count target of 50k, but everything to do with my attempt to write non-fiction.
For a pantser, planning is the equal of pulling teeth, through the ### (okay, I won't say it, but you get it) and yet non-fiction cannot be written any other way.
Having had some experience with non-fiction writing over the years, academic papers and such, I knew what to do.
Research was in place.
The structure of the document was in place.
The format changed and changed again until I was satisfied with the way it looked.
So I just had to write each chapter and I was set, right? It didn't happen. Sure the research was there, but not complete. So I had to spend several hours finding the info I had missed somehow. Did I mention that was a deadline involved here?
So Plan A was ditched, temporarily, and Plans B, C and D came into effect. And boy, did that help. I still have to do a lot of work on the non-fiction title, but I got three complete short stories written too! And one of them will be submitted for an actual competition in December!
This year I may not have done the 100k like I did last year, but I have three completed projects (the first drafts anyway) and another one well on its way.
Now to go and dig out that internal editor. Where are you hiding, little butterfly?