I have truly amazed me this year. Last year I wrote 76 thousand words in thirty days during NaNoWriMo. However, while the word count was fairly impressive and I was very pleased with that, the novel itself, the story, was not finished at said 76K. It took me another seven months to write just 16 thousand words and wrap the novel up at 92K. I was happy with the entire effort, and pleased that I was able to both meet the challenge of actually writing an honest-to-goodness novel-length story, not to mention the fact that I FINISHED it(!) (and we all know what a big fan I am of finishing things!!!), but it was a lengthy process, one which sucked up my creative writing energies for pretty much every other project that might have possibly come my way.

This year my goal was to not only write the 50 thousand words in 30 days, but to actually complete an entire novel, from “It was a dark and stormy night” to “and they all lived somewhat happily together ever after except when they had to decide who was going to pay for pizza or whose turn it was to take out the trash” by the end of the month.

I am extremely happy to say that, despite starting with nothing more than the idea of “this guy is looking for a job, and he meets this other guy” I slogged and scraped and sprinted my way through the month of November to wind up with an entire rough draft of a novel from first word to last by 9:22pm Eastern Time this evening. I even have an entire day left! Hah!

I am currently basking in the glow of accomplishment, celebrating by listening to some music and drinking a little water (yeah, I live big)…and wondering about The Next Big Challenge: turning this thing into a polished finished draft. Stay tuned, kids. It could get messy…or neater and more coherent, perhaps!