Questions about NaNo

Recently, after a post on NaNo, the following conversation ensued in the comments section:

Aquarius said...
What happens, if anything, if you don't make it to 50K words?

Eileen Wiedbrauk said...
You feel like shit.

Which basically sums it up. NaNoWriMo has no official monitor, no school marm to rap your knuckles or give you a failing grade if you don't' make it to 50k. For which reasons the creators recommend that you tell everyone you know that you're about to embark on this crazy-ass mission so that they can ridicule you if you fail. This kind of external pressure is necessary for some people.

For me this past January, it was all about proving I could finish something. I had just quit law school without even hitting my semester exams and I needed to know that I quit because I wanted to not because I was a quitter in general. HUGE impetus for completing 50k even if it was a crap novel.

So, in short, if you don't "win" there is no penalty for "losing" unless you make one.

So you just go and write as many words as you can. Or, you clean your boyfriend's attic.