And it's over...or just beginning

NaNoWriMo is done and I'm proud to say this is my first time finishing with 50k words! I did it! I made it! I am very thankful.

Final word count: 51,886

My original goal at the beginning was 100k. I knew it was ambitious. Even though I didn't reach my personal goal, I feel accomplished in a small way knowing that I did better than I did last year.

I think that will always be my true goal for NaNoWriMo: write more words than I did the previous year. (Of course, if I get a fluke year and write 200k, that goal will probably stop and I'll make it more realistic.)

Congratulations to everyone who participated in NaNoWriMo! And an extra applause for those who wrote 50k or more by the deadline.

I'd like to hear a short synopsis about your NaNoWriMo experience. A synopsis of how you get into your writing groove, what your favorite part about NaNoWriMo is, or even a synopsis of the novel you wrote during November.

Also, what did you do the day after NaNoWriMo?

I promptly started another story. I don't know why. It sounded like a fun thing to do.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Praise the Lord for His incredible blessings. This year I am most thankful for my fiance and the way the Lord has brought us together.

Week 4 of NaNo

Hey! It's the last week!

This is exciting, relieving, and sad all at the same time.

I got pretty stuck on my story, so I decided to add in a few extra plot twists. For instance, now my MC is in the middle of a tunnel maze after having found a gigantic pit of skeletons and a test-tube containing the black plague that she has to get to the surface.

I know a lot of people rail against NaNoWriMo because it promotes reckless abandon. And the point is valid because assumedly we're all trying to write something that will eventually be publishable.

And it does seem comforting to say that life should be all about quality and not quantity.

But the truth is, writing with reckless abandonment and making up crazy plot twists is just plain too much fun to pass up. It might be drivel. It might have taken up a lot of my time. But I find myself even now thinking back to last year's NaNoWriMo and remembering scenes I wrote during that time. Those scenes have now grown in my head and make a little more sense. But I wouldn't have had them if I hadn't tried to write crazily.

If NaNoWriMo doesn't work for some people, that's cool. But if it does work for some of us, that should be cool as well. I have always ALWAYS brought something away from writing crazily that was useable later on, even if it was just learning about how I write.

Sheer volume of words doesn't equal quality. But it sure helps in getting to that quality stage.

So what am I going to do with this mountain of words after November? Well, I have a second story I want to start on so I will probably file them away for a month or two, work on the other story, then bring them out when I have a fresh perspective on them again.

Happy Writing everyone! And Happy Thanksgiving! May your turkeys be big and make you sleepy, and may you find some time to settle down and enjoy family. And to write.

NaNoWriMo stats:

Words total: 43,676

Words left: 6,324

Average Words Per Day: 1,985

At this rate I'll be done on: Nov. 25th

Percent complete: 87%