I Did It!: I wrote a novel in 30 days through NaNoWriMo

Last month I took on the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. My friend Beth has done 5 of them! She was my inspiration to sign up for this NaNoWriMo this year. The 10th annual National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for short, starts every Nov 1st and ends midnight Nov 30th. You're supposed to not have done too much research before starting your book and you need to keep up a good pace of 1,667 words a day (that's 50,000 into 30). I was very inconsistent in my daily word count, but did write almost every day. I believe I skipped 4 days out of the entire month. I was most productive this last week since I have my in-laws with us so they could occupy my kids and I had an entire Wednesday to work on my novel. In fact, I started this week with a mere 27,000 words, knowing that I had to have 50,000 by Nov 30th.

Whew! All I can say is that keeping the daily word count, no matter how small, is the key to success. I also loved all of Chris Baty's (the NaNoWriMo's) emails and the supportive emails coming from my Raleigh-Durham WriMo Region. I never attended an official write-in because of the lack of time, but I still read everyone's email and advice. It was all good.

Now I just have to revise my raw (very raw) book. But at least I have something to work with! If you've ever wanted or dreamed of writing a novel, please consider doing NaNoWriMo next year!