 It's a sad day. I know. Let's raise a glass to my glorious mustache. Rest in peace. See you next year. What's shaking? My name's Cam. Welcome back to another video. Welcome back to the, uh, to the writer's bar. By popular demand, what was an obscure once-off bit is now, I guess, a recurring thing? I think it's fun if you just let yourself believe for the rest of the video that I'm simply a bartender and you're just popping in for a drink in a chat. I think it can be fun. God knows you could probably use a drink after this month, right? Unless you're, um, unless you're underage, then you get a Pepsi. Sorry champ. Today I've got some Batch 2020 Gentleman's Collection. I trust you'll enjoy this one. Look, I'm gonna go ahead and just, uh, dip my beans straight in the hot sauce here. I didn't win nanorimer. I didn't. The goal was to write 50,000 words in the month of November. I think I wrote about 33,000. Let me just, uh, let me bring it up here for a second. You'll see that I did, uh, bugger all here in the last week. The line graph flat lines like grandma after finding out you skipped breakfast. Regardless of that, I have to say this is literally the best nanorimer I've had in years. Maybe ever. I was, uh, I was motivated. I was loving what it was I was writing. And now more than ever, it felt like an actual community event. It felt like there were so many people involved. Cheers. Let's be honest, November was, it was a month. A lot of stuff happened is still happening. Wouldn't you agree? It always seems like November is one of the busiest months of the year and not exactly the best month to be trying to write 50,000 words. And unfortunately 2020 was no different. If anything, 2020 was much worse. 2020 is, is, well, it's really sweet. It almost tastes like dessert. I feel like this would go really, really well with like a pudding. On the plus side, I was growing a mustache during the month of November for the Movember Foundation, a charity that helps to raise money to prevent suicide and promote men's health, fight against prostate cancer, a whole bunch of stuff. I do that literally every year in memory of my dear old dad. And this year, we had a goal of $200 that I wanted to raise for the Movember Foundation. $200 a dues. And guess what? We f***ing smashed it, bro. We smashed it. Both through direct donations and from donations made during my live streams. All of the donations I got through all of my live streams in the month of November, I put straight into the Movember Foundation. It's awesome, truly. Thank you guys. It means a lot to a lot of people. And, you know, now that the moe is gone, now that the mustache is gone, maybe, maybe you could stop calling me a boomer now? I don't know. Just, just a suggestion. I know exactly why I loved NaNoWriMo so much this year. And I mentioned it in my last NaNoWriMo video. It's the writing sprints. It is 100% down to the writing sprints. I get it might still seem like an odd concept to some people. I know I was super skeptical at first, the idea that you jump in a live stream and you write for brief periods of time and then you stop the chat and then go back to writing, it just seemed counterproductive. I was wrong. It's been spectacular for my writing. It's been so motivating. The motivation and just the fun that I've gotten out of writing sprint live streams has just completely balanced it out. Trust me when I say, if you haven't at least tried it, give it a try. It really enriches the experience. It has been insanely motivating for me to not only host live streams where we do writing sprints, but also just to jump in the chat of other people's live streams. You know, one day I might be doing a live stream over on my channel where we write for a bit. We stop so that you can tease me for 15 minutes. We write a bit more. We stop so I can spill my 10th drink of my lap. And then the next day I might be jumping in on a Brooke Passmore live stream or a Kate Kavanaugh live stream or one of Devesh's live streams over at Grape Frye or many others. It's just really fun. My point is that I never thought writing would be like a group activity, but it can be. And it's just, it's just fun, my dude. It makes actually going and sitting down to write so much less daunting. It's kind of like just being in a really big club. So I did something last week that I've never done before. I'm not entirely sure I'll be doing again, at least anytime soon. I live streamed for 10 hours straight doing writing sprints. It was exactly as horrifying as it sounds. Here's how it went. I'll give you a review. On the plus side, it was like a big event. It was like a, it was like a thing. I had like, I had special guests. I had other author tubers pop in in intervals. We had like nearly 200 people almost the entire time in the chat and watching the stream, which is just, it's insane. Other YouTubers and writers from all over the world were there to join in. It was sick. In those 10 hours, I got about 5,000 words down, which might not seem like a lot, but consider this. One, I was slowing down a lot as the 10 hours went on. Two, a lot of that time was dedicated to like chatting with people and doing a lot of outlining as well. And three, I am a notoriously slow writer. On the downside, it kind of burned me out in one go. I wasn't really all that keen to get any more writing done for the rest of the week, which is why it flatlined. So it basically negated the entire point of the 10 hour write-a-thon, which was to put a big dent in my NaNoWriMo word count. But that's okay. It's fine. It was a fun experience. Another downside is that people got to see me pretty much in real time go from being bright and chatty to looking like I'd just been rescued from an island. While it was difficult, the problem wasn't really just that I was trying to write for 10 hours or that I needed sleep or anything like that. Those weren't really issues really. It was almost just entirely that I was staring at screens intently for like 10 hours. It just drained me. But I do really want to thank everyone that joined in on the stream. Anyone that co-hosted with me. Anyone that just jumped in the chat. Anyone that just popped in for a minute or two just to see how it was going. You guys truly kept me going through that whole thing. I couldn't have done it without you. So I hope it was fun for you as well. Would I do it again? Maybe, but sure as sh** not anytime soon. I promise you that. Would I do a 24 hour one? F*** no. Are you out of your mind? People have been asking me if I'll still be doing live streams for NaNoWriMo and I will be. I'll still be trying to do like a weekly or at least fortnightly live stream. They won't always be like writing sprints, but they will be sometimes. Other times it may just be me chatting about writing or author tube or me with a special guest talking about those things. They will differ from time to time, but they will still be happening. I'll also be doing more frequent streams on Twitch as time goes on. So if watching streams is easier for you on Twitch or if you want to see more streams than what you'll be seeing on YouTube, you can find a link to my Twitch channel in the description below. I'm just going to go ahead and have yours as well if that's okay. I finished like six short stories during NaNoWriMo. Six. That's like this many. My anthology of horror short stories is literally like 99% done. I have two like half finished short stories that I need to wrap up and finish off. And then that's the whole first draft done and dusted. If all goes to plan you guys will be able to get your hands on the horror anthology that I'm writing just like a couple of months after the psychological horror novel that I've got coming out on the 25th of January. This one here. Welcome to Zen. I'm not really all that good at like hyping myself up or talking myself up. I just get too awkward when I try to do it, but I really am proud of these short stories. I do think they are pretty damn good. One of my hopes with this anthology is that I can make at least some people scared of really common public places. I just thought that would be funny. Look, this NaNoWriMo has been my favorite so far in like four years of doing this. And I pretty much owe it all to you guys. I mean I'll take a little bit of credit. It is a little bit thanks to me as well, but mostly you guys. How did you go with NaNoWriMo? Did you get the W? Or did you, like me, take a fat L? I've got a ton of fun stuff planned for the channel going forward, especially into the new year, so stick around if you like writing. God help you. Anyway, it's closing time now, so go on and scoot. Tell you what, there's a great pizza joint just like a few doors down. Goes perfect with a drunk cab ride home. Thanks for coming. See you soon. Catch ya.