“Winner”

I did it! I “won” National Novel Writing Month, also known as “NaNoWriMo.”

By “won” I mean, I wrote 50,000 words, the requirement to make it to the winners page. I also succeeded in getting down on paper the entire story of my novel from start to finish. 😀

Of course most of it is pretty awful right now, and I even have places where I literally wrote (insert character’s name here) because I couldn’t think of a name at the moment.

I’m now going to bore you with a recap of my month.

By about mid-way through, I was slightly behind and considered not bothering with it. I told myself I could write at some point when I’m less busy. And then my baby bro, who is five but in college (and who has had many Birthday’s since his fifth, I just refuse to allow him to turn a year older each year 😉 ), texted me a link to an article about a handful of bestselling novels that began during NaNoWriMo. It was a turning point for me, reigniting my determination to do this thing right now, no excuses.

Side note…never hesitate to encourage someone, you have no idea what impact your words could have!

And then it happened….I had a day where all of a sudden I felt like an actual author! I was writing a scene I’d imagined for a long time, when all of a sudden one of my characters did a 180 on me, pulled out a dagger and turned from a good guy into a traitor. The entire scene took on a life of it’s own, and it was absolutely thrilling!

I also had days when I felt like I had no inspiration and every word was garbage. In hindsight, those were good days too because I showed myself I could do it even when it wasn’t fun.

I’m super blessed that Misteris has been 100% behind me this entire time, telling me he loves my idea and I have to do this because he wants to read my story, picking up the slack around the house without a single complaint, and in general being completely awesome-sauce. One day he came home from work with a laptop for me, so I could take the girls to Chick-fil-A or the park or whatever and write while we’re there.

Being able to get a change of scenery when writing was awesome. And I felt very official pulling out my laptop and hammering out words while my kids played!  I also felt all the more determined to live up to the potential Misteris saw in me when he showed me he completely believes in me by putting his money where his mouth is.

But the day I entered my 50,000 words for validation and completed this monumental task I felt…not much.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sooo glad I did it! But I think knowing that this was really just one small step in the process of actually writing a great novel and getting it published put a damper on being able to treat this step as even kind of a big deal.

But at this very moment the first ever copy of my story, rough and messy as it is, is on Misteris’ desk, so he can be the very first to read this story that has been floating around in my head for years, begging me to write it. That’s actually pretty cool.

And maybe this one step in and of itself isn’t a huge deal. But I’m excited. I’m doing this! I’m writing a book which I will painstakingly revise over and over till I get it right, and then I’ll figure out what the next step I’m supposed to take is, so that one day you, dear reader, can go to the bookstore and pick up a copy of my book.

I hope you love it! 😀