That’s Another NaNo Win

NaNoWriMo was in the bag at a little over 50,000 words on November 19th and I got around to validating it on the 26th. I reconciled pretty early on in the story that I wasn’t going to hit 60,000 words like I usually do for my NaNo novels, but I sort of knew that was going to be the case. The story I had was a little thin, to be honest. As I wrote I saw places that will probably be fleshed out whenever revisions happen, but I didn’t bother following any of those tangents. More than any other NaNo, I just wanted to be done.

This was a sort of wild NaNo. For the first time in many years I didn’t make my usual 2,000 word minimum every day. Taking off for the Cubs World Series parade, I settled for only writing 500 words two days in a row, which set me back not only by my standards, but also by the NaNo daily need to stay on target.

I only made 4,000 words a couple of days. I usually hit that mark easily on the weekends, if not a couple of other days during the week. The fallout from the election really kinda consumed my existence for a solid week, week and a half. Most of my time was spent reading articles and being active on Twitter spreading information (I’m sure I was muted/blocked/unfollowed by scores of people because I wasn’t entertaining anymore and I’m sure the few people who know me in my offline existence were the first to go). I didn’t want to write anything, let alone some stupid novel about a conjurer that will probably never be revised and/or see the light of day, even if I do love my conjurer and her friends.

But I wrote it anyway.

Because that’s kinda the point of NaNo. Writing when real life intrudes. Writing when you don’t want to. Forcing yourself to make time for your words. This is my 13th NaNo. You’d think I’d have gotten that drilled into my brain by now. I guess it sort of is because that is what made me push to get my words written. I admit that some days were more of a struggle than others.

My final push saw me hit 6,000 words two days in a row. Like I said, I wanted to be done.

And I am and I’m glad and it’s win number 10.

Hallelujah.