I Won NaNoWriMo!

Well, today, I can finally publish a blog post without feeling guilty. It is Day 23 of NaNoWriMo, and I passed the 50,000 word mark! Yes, I won my very first time doing NaNoWriMo, and it feels great. I think the best gift NaNoWriMo has given me (apart from 50,000 words towards the first draft of Compendium) is the gift of a writing habit. Even with a crazy work schedule and exhaustion, I have managed to get some writing done every day over the last 23 days. Some days I wrote more than other days, but even those days where I only squeezed in 350 words, I just couldn't not write. That habit will serve me well going forward as I power through the rest of my first draft.

The other weird thing about today is that the final words that counted towards my NaNoWriMo goal comprised the tensest scene in the entire novel. This scene was so hard to write that I thank my personal desire to get my NaNo graph filled out today with powering through the teeth-gritting tension that I was feeling. It just…