Another November gone, and with it goes National Novel Writing Month. It took me two days or so to recover enough for this post. What a whirlwind it was.
Despite moments of near-panic, I completed NaNoWriMo–at 11:53pm on November 30th. Considering that I still needed over 5200 words at 10:30pm, it was a near miracle. I don’t think I have ever written that fast. Ever. Amazing what a deadline will do for you, eh?
My final wordcount for the month was 50,678. I have to admit, dear reader, that this is the least I have ever written for a NaNo. Before this, the least I’d written was around 77k. My mother asked me yesterday, “What would you have done if you hadn’t finished.” I looked at her quite seriously and replied, “Wept.”
Of course, the challenges this month were unlike any I have faced in a forerunning November. The last two Novembers, for instance, I had a day job where I sat at a computer for 8 hours and could pretty much do whatever I liked. You can imagine what my wordcount was like. Of course, the year before that, I was in my last semester at college–but I still managed to crank out those 77,000 words. (I think I needed less sleep in college. Or I simply managed without.)
This month was crazy. First of all, I teach Taekwondo full time now. I spend most of my days on the floor, teaching or in class myself. Computer time can be somewhat limited. I also work a LOT, in the classroom or in the office. I have no small share of 12-hour days. It can be mentally, physically, and sometimes even emotionally exhausting.
This is before we throw in Traitor’s Gate. We (Sam, our editor and I) have been hard at work getting the manuscript ready for publication. So not only was I attempting to write the sequel, but I was still going through edits and revisions, debating over the title, getting author photos taken, brainstorming together about the artwork, and more.
So, all in all, I am very pleased with myself for having completed NaNoWriMo this year. I may not have had the soaring wordcount of some of my friends and acquaintances (*coughcough* Sushi *coughcough*), but I think it makes me even more proud to have finished strong despite the outrageous adversity. And really, NaNoWriMo is about making yourself write, no matter how difficult. Each of us have our different struggles, but we have to write anyway, or our stories never get written at all. Thus I finish proudly, and say to next November, come!
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