I’m A Winner!

… and not just because my Mom says I’m a winner, although she does.

Tomorrow is the last day of National Novel Writing Month and I am not worried because thanks to yesterday’s marathon writing, I am finished!! On the 28th I wrote just shy of 5,000 words and crossed the line into 50,000 word territory!  The novel isn’t finished by any means, but it’s hopefully a good chunk of the way there.  This month really has taught me a lot about writing a novel and even gave me ideas about future novels.

There were times, especially last week, where I was worried I wouldn’t make it and I even considered (for a minute or two) taking my 35,000 words and giving up on hitting 50,000.  I know it might sound cliché, but I really am glad I finished.  I am thankful I had a friend who had done NaNo before to give me some pep talks along the way, it really helped. Overall, I still can’t believe it’s finished and I’m done.  It doesn’t feel real.  Coming home tonight without thinking about how much I had to write felt strange and almost new.

While I was writing this month here are a few things I learned:

- I’m able to write more words in less time when I’m out of my apartment
- I write even more words in even less time, when I am writing somewhere I am unable to connect to the internet.
- The music I’ve listened to the most this month is The Beatles entire catalog and the Grateful Dead’s ‘American Beauty’.
- There were times I’d skim what I wrote a chapter or two and find little anecdotes I forgot I had written.
- I never sat at my desk in my apartment once this month to write.
- The cleanliness of my apartment suffered this week, ‘for the sake of finishing’, and now I have no excuse and need to finish cleaning.
- I like to favor coffee shops that give you goodies with your coffee like a truffle or some pretzels, basically I’m easily won over with trinkets, which isn’t anything new.
- I tended to create a lead for myself on weekends and then get lazy and lose those leads during the week.
- None of my characters have crazy names, yet
- 50,031 words is a LOT
- 50,031 words comes out to 7 chapters and 116 pages
- more than a few days this month I didn’t write at all
- My story went a ton of places I never expected or anticipated
- I was worried about not finishing up until yesterday

I told my Kindergarteners I finished my writing contest today. I even scrolled through the novel’s current 116 pages I have in an email as a backup because he wanted to see how much I had written.  His gasps of amazement made me happy, as did all the love after I received after posting a super pumped “I’m Finished” update on the Facebook.  More than a few comments made me very happy.  I may have danced around my apartment after I finished.  And just because yesterday had to go and make itself super awesome, I also got my Christmas package from my Mom!  I definitely danced around my school because of that.

The moral of the story is: I’m glad I did it, I can’t believe I actually did it, I will probably participate in this insanity again next year.

And just in case writing isn’t your thing, and reading about writing also isn’t your thing, here I am feeding a baby cow on the Kindergarten Graduation Trip.

Also my neighbor’s cute kitten, who likes to tell me secrets.

From Busan with post-NaNo Love,

Jenna

 


Filed under: adventure, awesome, culture, cute, English, kids, NaNoWriMo, teaching, travel, writing Tagged: books, literature, Writing

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