I have retired from life as an academic and now occasionally teach English as a second language while I develop my creative writing skills. Over the past 2 years I have written about 50 000 words of a memoir, and have also completed a number of short stories (fiction and non-fiction) that I've submitted to various competitions and publications (one has recently been published in an anthology on radical lesbian feminists in Australia and another submitted for publication in a different anthology). Initially, I thought I could use NaNoWritMo to help me finish my memoir but changed my mind after reading further into the website. I've continued writing my memoir this month and also wrote a short story for a competition, so haven't devoted myself as much as others would have. Yet NaNoWritMo has been an excellent motivational tool. I've completed one chapter of a novel, and look forward to continuing to work on it.