NaNotSoMuch

So, at the beginning of the month I set out to write a 50,000-word novel by midnight on November 30. I'm not alone, and I used NaNoWriMo as an excuse for not blogging at all. (Turns out I really don't rule at all. I have neither a novel nor a bunch of posts.)

But here I am, less than three hours away from my deadline, and I'm officially throwing in the towel. My final word count is just over 22,000, and as you can see I'm blogging, not working on it.

I'm not really really giving up, though. I plan to give myself another month to get to 50,000 before I turn around and start revising it. I'm trying to build up a writing portfolio, which is why I have a blog in the first place. So even though I wasn't able to write 1,667 words a day, I've still written creatively more in the last month than I have in years. This even trumps my thesis, which clocks in at just under 15,000 words, counting the bibliography, and took about a bazillion months to complete (there was more research involved in that one, though).

As far as NaNoWriMo goes, I can't really say that I followed their advice especially well. I never attended a write-in. I only stayed up late once or twice to write, and I only forced myself to write a few times. In other words, I did a pretty good job of churning out 22,000 words while still living the life I like to live. So I think that bodes well for my ability to keep writing in the future, if not my ability to write for a living. (Differently than I already do, that is. I know, nothing is ever good enough.)