Whew, I just reached the 50,o00 word mark this evening, completing the NaNoWriMo challenge this year. As I mentioned yesterday, it was a close call, with over 10,000 words–a fifth of the total–to go with just over 24 hours left to write. But I made it!
I won’t say my prose is beautiful, or even good enough to share, but the outcomes were similar to what I had hoped one month ago (italics from one month ago):
- Establishing a good new writing habit: I learned that writing a novel, even in large volumes such as this month, doesn’t have to take up a ridiculous amount of time. I can still find a writing-life balance.
- Completing a draft–albeit a very rough one–of the novel I have partially outlined, which will reveal weaknesses in the plot and characters at an early stage of the writing and editing process: I hardly scratched the surface of my deadline, but I did get to know my characters better and helped to solidify parts of the plot!
- A lot of fun! It was fun, especially when scheduling time to write with friends!
Did you participate in NaNoWriMo this year? If not, I’d encourage you to next year! It was definitely a worthwhile endeavor, and a lot of fun.
