The Best Opening Paragraph section is finally judged and the prizes will be sent out as soon as I know which colours the winners would like. It was incredibly difficult to judge, I got a short list of six and got horribly stuck putting them into order. In the end I had to go with which I would most like to read but I wanted to read all of them!

The secret prizes are mostly decided but I need to collude with Jezz - Lost and Ally-Brains Like Pasty Oatmeal to find out who deserves one in the Turbo group. Next year I think I won't have these, or I would have them even more secret, because although there are lots of people who deserve applauding for their efforts there aren't enough prizes to go around.

Well it's time for bed now. When I wake up tomorrow I will be a whole year older!
 

Well I finally bit the bullet and decided it was time to tie up those loose ends. I've managed fairly swiftly to find the Casual Consistency winner (I'm sorry for not doing this earlier! I thought it would take much longer than it has done) and I'm about to find the Turbo Highest Word Count winner and award the merit badges for those.

Then I'll get on with judging the remaining whole-group category and awarding the surprise prizes, and after that we can call it a day. I was going to send out a survey asking people what they thought could have been improved upon this year but I don't really need people to tell me that I really, really need to get more organised for next year. In August or September I will do some research to find out where people want the group to go in future and work on those suggestions.
 

Just a quick note to say that the prizes for Best Page have been awarded I'm trying to be more organised this year (couldn't be less so!) and so far it's not turned out too badly! ~EL~ Merry Christmas! and I are both aiming to have a look at the Best Opening Paragraph entries by the weekend so between the two of us it will be done within the week I think I'll probably not get too involved with judging it since it's nice to have guest judges and it avoids any possible bias on my part (not that I am biased to anyone, I love all the entries I've read so far!
 

I think this may be a record even for me! I still haven't worked out who won what in the sectional word count categories and there is still one whole-group category yet to be judged (thankfully ~EL~ Merry Christmas! is very kindly judging that for me and Mareli has judged the Best Page or we'd be here til NEXT November!) and it's already half way through January. There've been enough excuses in here to write a book but I have been busy with college and exams and work; I've never really had to work so hard but it's so important this year because my university offers hinge on getting great grades, both in my exams this month and in the summer.

Anyway it's been a salutory experience for me about the risks of taking on too much at once and I think next year things will have to be scaled back a little. I certainly won't be giving any prizes for things that involve quite so much maths in future! Even with spreadsheets doing the hard work for me it's going to take a while to get everything sorted; thankfully I don't go back to work til the 23rd so I have a full weekend after my exam to get it sorted out.
 

I think this may be a record even for me! I still haven't worked out who won what in the sectional word count categories and there is still one whole-group category yet to be judged (thankfully ~EL~ Merry Christmas! is very kindly judging that for me and Mareli has judged the Best Page or we'd be here til NEXT November!) and it's already half way through January. There've been enough excuses in here to write a book but I have been busy with college and exams and work; I've never really had to work so hard but it's so important this year because my university offers hinge on getting great grades, both in my exams this month and in the summer.

Anyway it's been a salutory experience for me about the risks of taking on too much at once and I think next year things will have to be scaled back a little. I certainly won't be giving any prizes for things that involve quite so much maths in future!
 

All the word count bonuses have been sent, and later I'm hoping to get the sectional prizes sorted out too. Right now, though, it's time to go and warm up! It's very very cold here and there's no heating upstairs so the chill has crept into my bones and I can barely move my fingers to type.
 

It's a very cold evening and I've spent it working on my spreadsheets and calculating word count bonuses and prizes. Every year I intend to do this more efficiently and sooner, and every year I fail. Next year I will absolutely get more organised!

Anyway it's done now, and I've finalised the prizes. No one will be receiving a word count bonus unless they're already on my list; I've had enough of trying to track down people's weekly word counts and if I don't know the count and/or the username, then they won't be getting any rewards. This is a two way process!

More cheerfully, the prizes are bigger this year than they have been to date. I'm still not sure about the balance between word count bonuses and contest prizes, but there's no time to worry about that now. I'm hoping to get the word count ones all sent out tomorrow, including the sectional ones which still need to be calculated. Gulp.

Right. Time for bed. Just going to post up the prizes on the prize list.
 

I've been tinkering with the accounts and possible prize values until my head hurts and I'm no longer sure that my equations are correct, so I think it's time to stop. Suffice it to say that the prizes this year are going to be much, much bigger than ever before! I'll do my best to finish sorting out what they will be tomorrow, although I'm not making any promises given my track record lately!

There are two things that people can do to speed up the prize-giving process: firstly, anyone who has not yet replied to my emails about judging, please do so You'll know who you are, and if you don't know what I'm talking about then don't worry, it isn't you. Secondly, anyone who hasn't posted their weekly counts in "Invalid Item" , please do so and if you can't remember what they are, check your official bar chart. Also make sure your username appears on the username list because I'll be using that to chase up the last few unknowns before I start awarding bonuses.

That's all for now. More tomorrow I hope! I'm a little less busy now because the first edition of the college newspaper is all but published and I passed my driving test yesterday so no more driving lessons!
 

As you can see my time to write became swallowed up by my novel, rather than by my blog! Sorry to anyone who was hoping for updates between last month and this.

Today I started the huge task of working out who has won what. The biggest part is the word count goals: I need to go through all the different places that people post their word counts and find out who hit their goals and who didn't, and then award gift points accordingly. Once that's done I can see who is in the running for the consistency awards and check their bar charts for a more accurate view (you have to have hit each of your weekly goals for this one) and THEN I will award the other sectional prizes.

Tomorrow I'll be emailing guest judges and getting the ball rolling for the non-word count based contest sections. If you want to enter one (and you have to actively enter those sections) then post in the contest forum which will shortly be emptied of all current posts to make it easier.

I've set myself the fairly pessimistic goal of having all prizes awarded by Christmas. Ideally it'll be done in the next two weeks but I'm being realistic: I have work, a university interview on Monday, my driving test on Friday and all kinds of stuff going on at college. There's not as much time as I'd like! But I promise everyone, it will all get done.
 

Wow. I've really been working hard this morning getting everything sorted out. Unless I've missed something somewhere (and I don't think I have) I've just created a definitive list of people's goals in order to set the weekly goals for individuals, made sure that the Turbo/Casual list reflects the group levels which in turn now reflect everyone's specified section choice, and I'm about to send an email to that effect.

Next year, if we decide that the sectional thing works, then I am going to create two extra group for the sections. The sectional groups will only be accessible by current members of "The NaNoWriMists 2011"  and people can add themselves to the sections rather than relying on me remembering to do it. I hate the thought that I'll have missed someone's post and that they'll miss out on prizes because I haven't added them to a list in time, but I really don't think I have time to do it all by hand if the group gets any bigger next year.

In about an hour I'm off to work, so there's just time to sort out the hosting for people without enough space and possibly get some writing done. I'd planned to catch right up this weekend and hopefully get a buffer but I'm not yet at 10,000 and I don't know how much time I'll have left before I leave. Never mind! I have a bit of time tonight when I get home, I will do it then.

If you've asked for hosting, expect an email about it in the next few minutes.


LATER:

I haven't written a single word in my novel but I bet I've written several thousand in emails, spreadsheets and lists! This group has really taken off and I'm thrilled at how successful it is but I really have to be so efficient to keep on top of everything and it's the worst possible time for it since my mum and her partner have gone away for the weekend, meaning I have to walk to and from work (at least an hour each way) and also look after the dogs, cats, chickens and ducks. Not to mention college work.

However, I've learnt so much this year and I've had some great ideas about streamlining and getting things ready for next year way in advance. I might even start setting up for next year in January, when this year's contest is judged and awarded. It's the only way I'll cope, because university starts next year.

The terrifying thing is that in 2006 we had 25 members by the end of the month. Last year we had 82. This year, we've got 131. If the trend keeps up there'll be over two hundred next year. I have to check every single person's weekly word count, which means knowing every single person's NaNoWriMo username, and also whether they had set a lower goal or not. I have several spreadsheets with extremely complicated equations working all kinds of things out for me. Running this group is solely responsible for my competence with Microsoft Excel, because frankly if I can't work out how to make it do the maths automatically then I can't do the maths. There is no practical way to calculate 524 different goals and how much each person wins in bonuses if you have to do it all by hand.

I don't think the true scale of the work I needed to do for this group hit me back when I started running it. OK, I'll be fair. Back when I started running it, the work I had to do was less than 20% what it is now. But then again, I was also younger and less focused and I was just trying something out. And it's worked! It really has; just from my point of view the group has been immensely supportive and motivating and I really do believe that managing my time in order to run the group whilst writing my novel, doing college work and working part time has set me up for the future. It's excellent practice for the real world

This is turning into a bit of an essay but that is how I get when it's late at night and I'm feeling content. The fact is that I love being this busy. I complain, I moan, I panic and blather about how I can't get everything done, but I am at my most efficient when I have more to do than time to do it in. And it has let me meet lots of amazing people and be truly inspired by their achievement.

Well, it's past midnight now and I'm at work again in less than ten hours. Tomorrow I will hopefully get several thousand words written, because if I don't, there is no hope of catching up.