Day Thirty Total: 67,907 words

So I'm finally ready to talk about the end of NaNoWriMo. Clearly I was a winner. That was established some days ago, and even verified by the NaNoWriMo bots on the 26th of November.

I semi gave up toward the end. It's clear that It's not quite finished and I'm actually fleshing out the ending today, by adding in a part that I'd completely forgotten: that the story cannot end before the band actually decides upon its name. And then I'll be happier to call the whole thing finished, even if it could maybe use another scene or two in the last chapter.

It was odd how the last chapter that I'd been looking forward to writing the entire time, took me a couple of days to really get into. But overall I'm happy with the way everything turned out. I, somehow, managed to avoid a lot of days where I just couldn't write anything because I hated my story. There were days when it was difficult to write, but not because I hated the story. I wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm guessing I'm going to hate it once I get around to reading the thing over again.

Here's my final NaNoWriMo graph. I forged my own path this year... well, so I sort of followed last year's for the first half of the month, but after that, I went my own way. I'm really quite proud of myself.

I think I'm done

I'm not sure if I am yet. I'm not happy with my ending. I don't think it's abrupt, it was clearly the end of the novel, but it's kind of short. I've still got a few hours to decide, and in draft two it will probably be longer, but right now, I think I'm done.

Day Twenty-Nine Total: 65,727 words so far

I wrote a few more words. But there's still a few more left to write. And then a few more after that.

Day Twenty-Eight Total: 64,194 words so far

Yesterday's total was a lie. I forgot that I'd written a sentence on the bus. Lol.

Day Twenty-Eight Total: 64,181 words so far

Um yeah, I didn't write much. But I haven't written much at all on previous Saturdays this month, so I don't really see that as a problem.

But I've decided to finish tomorrow. So I'm going to.

Day Twenty-Seven Total: 64,158 words so far

Today was a good day, probably because I ended up writing in all sorts of places. I started out in front of the computer as usual, then wrote on a bus, a bus stop bench, and I wrote while walking home (i.e. along footpaths and across roads). There's something kind of fun about risking your life (in a non-risky way) while writing, something that's generally seen as quite a non-risky activity. Maybe next year I'll start extreme-writing or something.

I have 5k more words to go-ish. Since every time I make an estimate it seems to balloon, I actually think it's pretty likely that I'll end up with over 70k words of story. That's kind of amazing. It's so much longer than the stuff I'm usually able to write and keep my attention on.

The interesting thing about this year's novel is that not that much actually happens in it, but I'm still managing to hit my word count by making lots of little things happen, that don't have too much to do with the overarching plot.

Day Twenty-Six Total: 60,898 words so far

Back to the writing. After all, I'm going to have to write at least 2k a day if I want to finish... well, it's a little less than 2k, but whatever. I have to write, so I am.

Day Twenty-Five Total: 57,934 words so far

I would have written more... but I didn't realise there was so much good TV on. Lol.

Day Twenty-Four Total: 57,574

So, I discovered that I haven't written a word on the 24th the previous three times I've done NaNoWriMo. I imagine in previous years I told myself I could take the day off because it was my birthday. This year I decided not to break from tradition, and abandoned my sub-goal of no zero word count days.

Day Twenty-Three Total: 57,574 words so far

So... haven't cracked 58k yet. Maybe today.

Day Twenty-Two Total: 57,431 words so far

Seems to me that 58k is proving hard to crack.

I imagine that once I get past it I'll be able to magically finish writing the rest of the story in one day.