Incompatible types struct* and struct,

Thanks for taking the time to read my question, I've looked at a few similar questions and they don't seem to help in this instance although may help others with similar troubles:

C: Incompatible types?
Struct as incompatible pointer type in C
Incompatible Types Error with Struct C

I'm attempting to create a simple linked list structure in c (-std=c99), my structure is fairly generic at this point:

typedef struct
{
  int count;
  char* word;
  struct node *nextNode;
}node;

then in a function i have a "root" or "head" node:

node *root;
root = (node *) malloc(sizeof(node));

and i attempt to assign a node to the root nodes nextNode later on in the function like so:

if(root->nextNode == 0)
{
  root->nextNode = foo;
}

Which leads to an error:
"error incompatibles types when assigning to type struct node* from type node
&foo does not improve the situation, instead resulting in a lvalue required as unary style error.

Here is the context surrounding my issue:

    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <malloc.h>
    #include <string.h>

    typedef struct
    {
        int count;
        char* word;
        struct node *nextNode;
    }node;

    node makenode(char *word)
    {
        node x;
        x.word = word;
        x.count = 1;
        return x;
    }

    void processInput(int threshold, const char* filename)
    {   
        node *root;
        root = (node *) malloc(sizeof(node)); 
        root->nextNode = 0;  
        char* word;
        while(fgets(word, 29, stdin) != NULL){
            if(root->nextNode == 0)
            {
                root->nextNode = makenode(word);
            }

Problem

    typedef struct             // make an alias for a structure with no tag name
    {
        int count;
        char* word;
        struct node *nextNode; // with a pointer to struct node (which does not exit)
    }node;                     // name the alias node

Solution

    typedef struct node        // make an alias for a structure with tag name node
    {
        int count;
        char* word;
        struct node *nextNode; // with a pointer to struct node (which is this one)
    }node;                     // name the alias node