Success!

I am so excited. This was my first year doing NaNoWriMo and it was such a rewarding experience. The minimum word count was 50 K beginning November 1st and ending November 30th and I was able to get over 64 K, while battling the flu all month. The story is about 2/3 of the way completed and so I am still working on it. However, it is what I learned this last month in the process that is the most valuable to me.

I had only two or three days to prepare for this, so I really went into this blind. I came up with a story which was really minimal, at best, and I worried whether I was going to get any mileage out of it or not. Happily, the story unfolded as I typed. It has been fun to see all of the twists and turns it has taken. I am now really looking forward to how this ends.

What was thrilling for me was that in spite of being sick, in spite of not having a story mapped out ahead of time, and in spite of not having written anything for a long time, I was successful in creating something that is working. I was also successful in seeing that by turning off my internal editor while I write the first draft, I actually do my best work. That is not to say I don’t have a whole lot of editing to do afterwards, but I allowed myself to go down rabbit trails to see where they led. I often discovered that those little side trips took me to some interesting places that I might not have explored otherwise.

The most important thing that came from this exercise was that just the act of participating made me successful. It is really about how you measure your success, because really, it is not a house unless you build it. It can’t become a story unless you write it. You can’t be successful unless you do it.