#NaNoWriMo Stage 4

I almost forgot about this post. Well, I’m supposed to be studying, so hopefully that’s a good enough excuse. Anyway, I just wanted to check in with my readers and talk about how my insane NaNoWriMo attempt went. When I was typing my previous post, I honestly didn’t expect the Saturday and Sunday after that to go the way it did. I have one word for that weekend – insane! I was so dazed by the end of it, I had to verify twice that my word count was correct. My fingers were a mess (Still are, in fact, because I haven’t been able to give them the rest they so obviously deserve).

The good news is that I hit 50k on November 21st and validated my word count to become an official winner!

Right you are, Professor Dumbledore.

I can’t tell you how good that feels! It’s been an exhausting, wild ride so far. The best part was that I wrote 23k words in one day! On November 20th, I wrote for almost 10 hours without doing much else and realised I raked up a lot of words. It’s probably not my best writing ever, but it still sounds pretty good. Anyway, if you need a miracle like that, I suggest you turn off the word count display. That helps, I swear.

For those of you who have made it to the Winner’s circle, congratulations! For those of you still a little (or maybe loads) behind, you can still do it! NaNoWriMo has seen plenty of amazing last-minute success stories, and maybe you’ll be that person this time around. If you think you’re too far behind and can’t get to 50k, that’s okay. You’re a hero just for trying. Maybe the NaNoWriMo format just didn’t work for you this time, or unexpected things came up and snatched away your writing time. Whatever your reasons are, if you’ve gotten from 0 words to anywhere, it’s still a start and you can always build on that whenever you do find the time. Just remember that the end of November doesn’t mean the end of your novel.

My advice for this week: set a crazy goal. If you’re hovering around 40k, challenge yourself to finish the entire 50 in one day. When faced with the impossible, the human brain shows extraordinary capacity to try and achieve it. There’s an associated rush with trying to attempt an insane thing like that. Even if you don’t get to your goal, you’re a lot better off than when you settled for the daily goal you had.

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That was short and I’m sorry. I really do need to get back to studying. Finals are two days away, effectively. Please note that I will not be posting in December until the 14th because I don’t have the time what with my final exams and all. Also, I’ve been refraining from commenting on and liking most of your posts too, so please accept my apologies. However, I do hope you remain faithful readers and join me again when I resume my normal schedule. Until then, have a great weekend, whatever’s left of this month and the first half of December! 🙂