I Won NaNoWriMo!

Well, today, I can finally publish a blog post without feeling guilty. It is Day 23 of NaNoWriMo, and I passed the 50,000 word mark! Yes, I won my very first time doing NaNoWriMo, and it feels great. I think the best gift NaNoWriMo has given me (apart from 50,000 words towards the first draft of Compendium) is the gift of a writing habit. Even with a crazy work schedule and exhaustion, I have managed to get some writing done every day over the last 23 days. Some days I wrote more than other days, but even those days where I only squeezed in 350 words, I just couldn’t not write. That habit will serve me well going forward as I power through the rest of my first draft.

The other weird thing about today is that the final words that counted towards my NaNoWriMo goal comprised the tensest scene in the entire novel. This scene was so hard to write that I thank my personal desire to get my NaNo graph filled out today with powering through the teeth-gritting tension that I was feeling. It just happened to land there, so the NaNo Gods were apparently having a laugh at my expense. It will probably require some tweaking in the re-write, but I’m just glad I got through it.

The rest of what’s left is Mia’s hitting bottom, surrendering, shifting her perspective and redeeming herself. That part should be easy, right? Well, probably not, but the momentum is there at least, and I have a very clear concept (pretty much) of what has to happen to get me through the end of the first draft. And then, I will put my novel aside for a little bit and begin the re-write process!

In the meantime, I am going to enjoy my NaNoWriMo win immensely. I have already celebrated with good barbecue, a slice of cake and the 50th Anniversary Dr. Who special, which I really enjoyed. Not going to lie… I loved getting to see David Tennent reprise the 11th Doctor. And now I’m probably going to start reading Diana Gabaldon’s Dragonfly in Amber. I just finished Outlander a couple of days ago, and I would characterize it as either “If a woman wrote A Song of Fire and Ice” or “If George R.R. Martin wrote a romance novel.” Beautifully written, brutal and very romantic too. I will have a separate post for it once I get my act together on that.

In the meantime, for other WriMo’s out there still trying to hit 50,000, good luck, you still have some time!

About the Photograph: This is a photograph taken from a helicopter of lava spewing out of Mt. Kilauea and into the ocean forming sulphur clouds on the Big Island of Hawaii, taken in August 2009.