NaNoWriMo 2019: Done

There were moments I wasn’t certain it would happen. After being sick three days, and having a day or two of subpar numbers, I knew it was going to be close, and I certainly didn’t think I’d finish any sooner than today.

As it turned out, I finished yesterday – at least with the part of the writing governed by “write 50,000 words in November.” The story itself is still unfolding on the page, and I’d estimate there’s at least another 10-20k words before this draft is done.

What carried me to this finish line yesterday was some Herculean writing and a persistent but awesome kid.

I started the day yesterday knowing I’d have to write 2,000 words yesterday and today to finish in time. And so, yesterday morning, I sat down and wrote and wrote, and then wrote some more, until I hat that 2k mark. With a big sigh of relief, I declared myself done for the day.

And then my youngest, who I guess isn’t so young now at 13, reminded me that I had promised to go to a coffee shop with them and write while they worked on some sketches. The promise had been made months before I even considered doing NaNo, but somehow kept getting pushed off. Which meant I knew better than to put it off any longer.

So, grabbing my laptop and kindle (just in case), we packed up, ran an errand, and then drove over to Papacinno’s, not too far from the house. Fresh coffee in hand, classic coffee shop ambiance in place, we sat down and I let the demon’s loose again. And boy, were they wild and rampant! Even with breaks for finger cramps and chit-chat, by the time I left I had done it. I had written the other half of the 4k needed to close the gap and call NaNo done.

That doesn’t mean I’ve taken a break from writing, though. I’ve already sat down today and jotted down the next 500 words in the story. My new goal is to write 500-750 words a day (500 is my base goal, 750 is my ideal, but my base is fine too). It’s not an incredible lightning pace, I know, but I was inspired by this article on Tobias Buckell’s blog. Looking over my own graphs of words produced, I see a definite zig zag in productivity, with my biggest dips usually following my greater peaks this month. We’ll see how it goes.

What’s the future of this NaNo piece, currently titled just Titan? Well, we’ll see where that goes and how it ends.