My 1st NaNoWriMo Experience

When I set out to partake in NaNoWriMo I thought it would be a great idea to add a little chaos in my life.  On November 1st I wrote over 5,000 words, and did so again on the 2nd day.  I felt pretty good about how strong I started, and even so by the end of the week.  Week one was pretty good.  I was hopeful that I might win, and might even finish before the 30th.

Week #2 was not as great as the first, I still wrote at least 1,667 words a day (the word count in order to finish 50,000 in 30 days).  By the end of the week I was behind on the words for my own personal count, but still 1,000 or so ahead.

I began to panic during Week #3!  I was going out of town for the weekend to see my sister, and Thanksgiving was coming.  I wrote as much as I could during preparing for my trip to see my sister, while still giving my husband, cat, and other wifely duties attention.  During my flight to Orland, I wrote the entire time, but not enough to be all caught up.  CRAP!  My sister understood that while we could still have our good times (which we did), she knew that I had to write every single day–and I did.  Even though I wrote on the plane home, by the time I got back home, I was still behind.  The next day I dove headlong into my story and made finishing my second book my goal.  My thoughts were that if I was going to participate in NaNoWriMo, I would win!

Thanksgiving was the last weekend in NaNoWriMo and there were only a couple of days until the month was over.  It was the most memorable holiday, and for this I was-no, I am thankful!  I can’t remember a holiday (especially a Thanksgiving) where I was so focused on family and my book!  Everyone in my family, all seventeen of them, saw me writing, but I don’t think that some knew what I was in the process of doing, the pressure I was under, or what I was going through.  I wrote in the mornings, during lunches, and after dinner, some even between cooking meals-which I did quite a lot of, but it was all worth it.  I love my family, and I love to write.

On the next to last day of NaNoWriMo, I wrote my heart, and my fingers and hands out.  I wrote like there was no tomorrow.  That night I went to bed just shy of 2,000 words to go.

November 30th had finally arrived.  My husband had gone to work, the cat was fed, and our house was a mess.  I sat at my laptop for about forty-five minutes thinking of how to end it, but I couldn’t bring myself to write the ending.  I didn’t know my emotions then, but looking back on it now, I was sad to let my characters go.  Once I began to write, I found it hard to stop…but then the last two hundred words were the most difficult.  How did I want my characters to be known, and how did I want my readers to feel/think/say when they read the last word?  I finished NaNoWriMo that day around two o’clock in the afternoon.  When I called my husband to let him know, he asked me how I felt.  I couldn’t answer him, because I really didn’t know how to respond.  I was sweating, and I was nervous, happy, excited, and sad to see my time with the characters that I created had ended.

Overall, my first experience with NaNoWriMo was amazing.  It taught me to how be a writer, and it taught me how to trust what I write, but most of all it taught me to believe in myself as a writer.  It’s because of NaNoWriMo that I can officially call myself a writer.

I have decided to participate in NaNoWriMo 2012, and am thinking of picking up from where I left off from my second fully completed book.