NaNoWriMo drew to a close last night. I didn’t make it to 50,000 words, so I’m 1 for 2 now. BUT there were lots of good things that came out of the month-long writing challenge.

First off, I am 25,418 words closer to completing the manuscript for my science fiction novel. This is the most I’ve added to the book in one month since NaNoWriMo last year. It felt great to really plug away!

Second, my current total is 106k words and I’m shooting for 150k. (So about 300 pages, going for 450 pages.) It was awesome to hit 100k words, kinda like rolling over your odometer. I also wrote 10,000 words in my outline and notes, as I’m fleshing out a lot more detail along the way. As I’m working through the final third of my novel, it’s getting trickier all the time to tie everything together.

Third, I wrote 29/30 days in November and averaged 1,000 words a day. I’m settling into what is a sustainable pace for me. During November last year, I averaged 1,800/day and then I took some time off. It was great to dive headfirst but it wasn’t something I could do every month. I’m at the point now where I have a better handle on what I can accomplish each day. I’ve also come to see how critical the “pre-writing” is (notes and outlines).

Writing every day, no matter the output, was great “strength training” for my mind and imagination. It’s really sunk in how much daily discipline and consistency is required to pull this off. One of the biggest surprises in this entire process is seeing how I can actually schedule my creativity.

So, for the next few months, I’m challenging myself to write every day, and setting a daily goal of 1,000 words, whether it’s pre-writing stuff or adding to the manuscript. My goal now is to get the first draft completed by the summer. Here we go!