So, what have I gleaned from this month? First, I missed writing. I hadn’t done anything for a while before NaNo. I finished a second draft early in the year, and since then it was just plotting. Well, some minor writing, but not much. It was fun to dive into a story again and see where it would take me.

The other main thing that I learned is that I just need to write. It’s amazing to see how quickly words add up. Heck, in just one day, you can go from being behind to being more than caught up.

The last that I’ll mention. Just write. NaNoWriMo isn’t about quality, it’s about quantity. It doesn’t matter that those 1,000 words you wrote are worthless. It matters that you wrote them. November is for creating, not editing to make it publishable. That’s what editing and rewrites are for. NaNo is about the first draft.

Ok, I lied. One more: Let the story flow. You might know where the story should go, but sometimes the most interesting and unexpected things happen when you just let your fingers fly across the keyboard and be a conduit for your creativity, instead of thinking about what you’re writing. I know that makes no sense to a lot of people, in the same way that the story and characters are alive and will do their own thing sometimes. But, when you understand the concept, it will make sense and fun things will happen in your story.

So, what am I going to do post-NaNo? I’ve got a few things that I’m working on now. I have an online character sheet for the Destiny Quest gamebook. I haven’t worked on it for a while, and I’m getting back to it. It’s quite an undertaking and will take a while. But it is a lot of fun.

I also have a Vote Your Own Adventure idea that I want to work on. I’ve got a bit written for that, but it will take more time.

My last project is why this site was created, a serial story. It’s in the plotting stages of the next rewrite.

So, at some point, I’ll find time to do all of this. And finish my NaNo novel. After all, I’m only half way done.

This post is just going to be a quick summary of what happened writing wise for me. I’m going to do a proper summary later of how I thought NaNo went in general, and the things that I’ve learned.

As I said the last time, I ended up a bit behind. I had done pretty good, and got close to catching up. Things don’t always work that well, though. The next Write-in helped me get over 4,000 words. The next few days after that, I had a few bad days. And then the next weekend we visited some friends, and I forgot my laptop. I did manage to get some writing done on Sunday after we got back, though.

Up until the last Saturday, I was consistently around 2,000 words behind. But, I was able to keep writing and not get too much further behind. I even got to write on Thanksgiving. I just holed myself up for a bit of writing, and reemerged for a bit to hang out with family. Not the most idea, but it’s easier to do than to write near where everyone is. I’ve tried that. Too many distractions.

The Write-in on the last Saturday is what really helped me. I was able to get just over 4,900 words, which is a best for me. That caught me up with where I needed to be to finish on time. But I didn’t finish on time, I finished early!

The last Sunday and Monday were good, and I stayed on target, and got a bit further ahead. At our last Write-in on Tues, Nov 29, I manged to get a lot done, mainly fueled by two word-wars that we did. After I got home, I did some more writing, and suddenly I was finished.

I did some more writing on Wed, just to finish a chapter and get something in. I fear this story isn’t half way done, so I wanted to get something in. And leaving it in the middle of a chapter is just annoying.

That’s my rough end of NaNo post. I finished with a total of 51,339 words. I do have more with some things that I’ve learned, but I’ll leave more for my final NaNo post.