Oh yeah... and By The Way......

I totally did it.

50,000 words.
One month.
You can be impressed by me now.

Honestly, I'd say it was a rewarding experience over all. Early Sunday morning, at around 6:30, I did a word count and found myself over 50k. I verified on the National Novel Writing Month website and celebrated quietly by drinking a cup of Holiday Mint coffee. I felt incredibly satisfied.

During the month of November I found myself writing in every spare moment, mostly away from the computer as I've found I tend to sound like a robot when I write at the computer. The five minutes I have between classes...I was writing. The twenty minutes after work before I can leave for home...I was writing. While dinner was in the oven...I was writing. I managed amazing leaps some days of 4k words and others I didn't even get a chance to think about it at all other than a twinge of guilt as I sunk into bed for the night.

Now, I haven't written a word since Sunday morning but I do intend to. Having 50k words doesn't mean I have a complete book. It's far from it and I'm still hammering out some of the details. My main characters have decided to do something awkward which has lengthened the book and I'm not certain what they intend to do with this extra time. For the moment they've hijacked it though and I'm a bit frightened they'll head somewhere which will make the ending - which I've already written - obsolete. Ugh.

I love how motivating the experience was and I look forward to next November when I will again take up the challenge. In the meantime, I am forced to set small goals for myself which may or may not be motivating. Only time will tell.