NaNoWriMo – Two-time Winner

I know… it’s a little bit of old news… But, honestly, I had to take a keyboard break after the breakneck pace of writing I needed to maintain to actually finish. I did finish–even better, with 35 minutes left before the deadline. And it felt like much more of an accomplishment this year than last. By day 11 I had only written 5,689 words (I was supposed to have been at 18,333). I had a productive weekend, then, and got to over 15K when I was supposed to be over 21K. And I kept churning out little bits here and there.

Then we got the kind of baffling, world-pulled-out-from-under-your-feet kind of news from my father that required an unexpected trip to Virginia for Thanksgiving. I had really planned on using that vacation time to catch up/get ahead/finish early. It was not in the cards. I got further behind. There were several days when I wrote nothing. I seriously contemplated just chalking it up to a “life got in the way” experience of loss. Then I read one of those “how bad do you want it” inspirational posts and decided that wasn’t a good enough excuse for me.

And I found a group of amazingly supportive writers who were doing “Wordmongering” writing sprints. I discovered that with this kind of motivation (and a looming deadline!) I am actually a pretty fast writer. At my best, I was producing almost 1,200 words in 30 minutes. I astonished even myself. But at day 26 I was still only at 35,014 words of my 50K-word goal. I didn’t think I had enough energy and time (after working full days) to write 15,000 words in 4 days.

I’m going to have to revise my faith in myself a little, I guess. And I might have to consider the fact that now that I’ve written two novels in two 30-day periods that I could manage this on a more regular basis and increase my output to a more year-round basis.

I’m still getting over myself on that one.

In the meantime, heartfelt thanks to all those lovely Wordmongerers who were so supportive that I felt I couldn’t let them down after coming so far with their encouragement:

• Moni-Marie Vincent
• Avalon Jaedra
• LaughingMouse (another Wisconsinite)
• Sara Leggeri
• Julia Indigo
• Breeana Puttroff (I got to read her book last night… review coming tomorrow!)
• Shana Hammaker
• Siri Paulson
• Steven P Watson
• George Sirois
• Julie Jordan Scott
• M.L. Wyatt
• Jennifer
• Angela Goff
• Angie Richmond
• Cheryl M.
• sarjé
• Kendra Kilbourn

It’s entirely possible I’ve neglected some of the others I met through that exercise (and if you know what’s good for you, you will follow each one of these folks for their creativity, warmth, and unstinting support!), but it confirmed for me the utility and importance of Twitter as a means of finding a community of like-minded and helpful others who are working toward similar goals as you.

So I’m taking a deep breath, and will be on the Katarr Kanticles Press publication schedule next year… (You heard it here first!) (Thank you, Gayla!)

🙂