Welcome to Part 3 of my 3-part series on NaNoWriMo, aka National Novel Writing Month. Now that NaNo is history for another year, let me reflect a bit on how things went.First, here's my find word count for NaNo 2011:
Yep, I did it! But I must say, this was the toughest year ever--and hitting the goal took longer than any of the five prior times I'd participated. In fact, I crossed the 50k mark with only 6 hours to spare. But hey, success is success!
Had I not made it past that magical number (which, by the way, did not mark the actual end of my book), I still would count my participation a success. The fact that I can and do write through all manner of distractions, life dramas, work schedules, and assorted upheavals means books get finished and royalties eventually find their way into my wallet (for far too short a time, ha!). Hitting an arbitrary word count does not a winning writer make, but it's good for me to have a goal to shoot for at least once a year. It forces me to pull my write-to-deadline skills out of mothballs, and remember that I can't always wait around for my muse's whim and good graces. He's a sly trickster who takes great delight in popping up at inconvenient times, and then dashing off to chase the next pretty skirt just when I need him.
I hope that those of you who participated in NaNo this year were able to further your current project, whether or not you hit "the mark". Getting to that finish line happens in its own time, whether a book is 20k or 100k, but we can't get there without making the journey! So here's celebrating all of us who are making the journey to our next book, whenever we might type THE END.
Next month, I'll be stopping in with another updated on my G.R.I.P.E. (GReat Indie Pub Experiment). Until then, Happy Holidays to all, and a joyous New Year!
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