NaNoWriMo Reflections

And with that, ladies and gentlemen...National Novel Writing Month has left the building.

The goal?  To bring my manuscript to 100,000 words by the end of November.

The Reality?

My manuscript as of today is at 75, 856 words.    During NaNoWriMo, I wrote 24,181 new words and edited the majority of the writing I did last November.   Do I feel like I failed?   Nah.   I think that considering that I work full time, have 2 year old twins who seem to have given up napping AND am trying to balance my life....I think I did pretty good and I can't beat myself up over it.  Of course, I don't get to order the hoodie I promised myself if I did it. 

Guess that gives me something to plan for next year.

If I had been writing all fresh prose, I think I would have hit the 50,000 words.  I learned something really important this month.   Editing is time consuming and HARD.   I would spend some of those days, adding only 800 words and feeling completely exhausted from staring at the screen.  

The Loracian Stone is no longer a finished novel, but it will be.   I have a few more chapters to add to make the story more cohesive.   That's the fun part.

Now that NaNo is over, I plan to schedule some time to write regularly.   I need to finish this book so I can decide what I want to do with it.  I am still thinking of serializing it - if only to get it out there.   Perhaps I'll self publish it.  Maybe, I'll do both.   I have time to decide.   Honestly, I've only had one person actually ask to read it.

I like the story, though.  It isn't the greatest fantasy novel ever written, but  it was fun to write and I can't wait to see how it turns out :)


Did you NaNo?   How did it go for you this year?