Writing, Winning, and NaNoWriMo

Ah, the sweet victory of goal accomplishment. Yes, I finally finished #NaNoWriMo with 50,180 words as of 7:30 p.m. EST last night (2 days before the deadline). That means that I have officially accomplished my goal to also complete one manuscript this year. Now it wasn’t any that I still have in the works, but having finished one has motivated me to finish the others.

Committing myself to writing a 50K novel in one month has taught me a few good lessons as a writer and about my writing style.

1. My muse is powered by music,?caffeine, chocolate, and?consistency.
2. I can bust out about 2000 words a day without having any clue what I’m going to say prior to sitting down, and about 6000 when I do plan it out.
3. I need deadlines, or at least the illusion of them.
4. It is important to sit down to write every day.

Now that I know these things about myself I shall be kicking my own butt a might bit more than I already do when it comes to my writing. My best writing days were the ones I woke up, had coffee, and spent the first hour planning things out for the day which included writing and living. Some of those days I actually wrote about 2K for #NaNoWriMo and a 300-700 word blog post or two. When I look back I’m astounded by that.

I still found time to take a family outing to the NC Ren Fest, have a friend over for dinner, and went out for an evening with another friend. And let’s not forget the art projects for the holidays that I’ve been doing with my daughter (more on that in an upcoming post).

Yes, there were times I was stressed. I had at least a few glasses of white wine and sangria. There was cat barf to clean up, and diapers to change. Life was going on while I wrote, and I still took part in all of it. ?Being a mother sort of prepares you for these things even though you don’t realize it is doing that, and you feel like you might be going crazy.

All in all, I am super proud of myself for doing this. I learned so much, and now I have a completed manuscript to ?edit and polish. Heck, if all goes well it may see publication someday, and next year for #NaNoWriMo I may have a sequel to work on. I’m not 100% sure on that last, but it’s on my plate for?consideration. That is exciting too. This whole experience has not soured me on my writing?aspirations to become a published author, but rather fueled me to continue the?pursuit?of that goal.

Thank you, #NaNoWriMo.

*Photo: Pen, Diary and Glasses by Generationbass.com, obtained through Flickr.