Hello, intrepid ZU writers.

A simple truth about being a writer is this: you can have impeccable language, ingenious characters and an incredible plot - but none of it means anything if you can't finish a story.

There was some criticism in the comments on the main site about the nature of this challenge. People said it was stupid, pointless, so simple a typing monkey could do it. To these people I say, bullcrap. Look at the sign-up sheet; look at who's still going.

Marathon writing is hard - dedicating yourself to one piece of writing for 30 days is a genuine challange that deserves recognition. I want to applaud those of you who have been sticking with it. You have a lot to be proud of.

Day 19 of ZuNoWriMo - if you've been following the suggested pace, you should have 19,000 words by now with 11,000 to go to reach the goal.

If you, like me, have fallen dreadfully behind due to work, school, lack of inspiration, dog-ate-my-computer, etc., you are considering dropping out of the challenge. Or you already have.

To these people (and myself) I say - better luck next time. Please make your dropout official in this thread.

If we decide to do this again, I want to make sure we give writers every opportunity to succeed. One thing I'd change is have more than three days between the announcement of the challenge and it's start, so folk can really have time to develop ideas and do a bit of research. Another change would be not holding it the month before NaNoWriMo.

Use this thread for suggestions on how we could improve ZuNoWriMo for the future.

To those of you still writing towards the goal:

Rock on. Keep at it. We're pulling for you.