Time I finished: 12:30-ish on November 28.
Most words written in one day: 4042, on November 1.
Least words written in one day (not counting my day off): 839 on November 7.
The first thing I did after finishing: Went to my Bible Study's Thanksgiving dinner.
I won NaNoWriMo! Huzzah!
This was probably one of the harder NaNos I've done. Not as hard as last Camp NaNo last April, but still . . . hard. Thank goodness for wordcount crawls. They helped a lot, particularly during the last week or so. One in particular got me two days' worth of words in about half a day. (Which was a good thing, since I spent the next day raking leaves for a youth group fundraiser.) There were some days when I felt like I couldn't write a word and everything I did write was terrible and why couldn't this scene be over already? But I made it through with grades, health, and sanity intact.
And, like every year, it was definitely worth it. I had lots of fun, and I accomplished something I definitely wouldn't have otherwise. I faced a challenge- and conquered it. In a way, it's an adventure. (But with significantly fewer enemy attacks, near-death-experiences, days without food, and hours of walking on my part.)
And now it's over and suddenly I have time. I have options. I don't have to spend every spare minute writing. I could start again on my rather large stack of books to read, or play on the computer without feeling guilty, or make graphics, or do some photography, or watch The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey extended edition (which my parents got me for my birthday).
Don't take that wrong, though. Just because I have options doesn't mean my novel is done. I still have a long way to go before I can say that. Also, I still need to finish Monster in the Castle (my Camp NaNo novel), and there's lots of writing contests I'd like to enter. I definitely don't want to make the same mistake I did last year, when I gave myself a break after NaNoWriMo and ended up barely writing anything until Camp NaNoWrimo in April. I'm hoping to stay in the habit of writing something every day.
But NaNoWriMo is done. As a friend of mine put it, "the dragon is slain". And more projects or not, that means I can relax.
Huzzah!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)
Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)
Thanks, Hannah!
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