NANOWRIMO Fail.

Today is the last day for NaNoWriMo. If you look to the right of this post, you can see my total word count. I failed. Miserably. I only had one full week of determination, motivation, and creativity. Even my muse sighs disgustedly when she sees that total. 

I know what you're thinking--"But there's still time!" Yeah. No. It's not gonna happen. 

I'm usually an optimist, so the good news is that I wrote 20,000 words that I hadn't written before. When I go back and read it all, I'm sure it's all crap, but there may be some golden nuggets hiding in that mess. We'll see. But really, 20,000 words while I took solo care of the business for a week, 20,000 words while gearing up for Thanksgiving, 20,000 words while being a business owner, housewife, mother, daughter, and grandmother is really good in my book. 

I may not be the next bestselling author. I may not have agent representation, and I may not have a published novel, but I'm proud of every step I make while doing what I love--writing.

I'm proud of my turkey too. Just look at it!

So, if you were one of the amazing people who won NaNoWriMo and wrote 50,000 words, I bow to your awesomeness!

And for the rest of you that didn't win NaNoWriMo or didn't even participate, I'm proud of you too. I'm sure you did something just as amazing during the month of November. 

Tell us all about it!

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Uncle!

Ok, I give up.  Officially.  I know, I know, there are still 28 hours left, but there is no way I'm going to prolong my agony any longer.

I'm talking about National Novel Writing Month of course.  The goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November.  When you break it down, it's only 1667 words per day.  Yes, I said only.  Technically it's about 7 pages of 12pt font, double spaced.

"That's easy," you say.  I'll admit, even I said it.

I participated last year and afterwards, I swore I wouldn't do it again.  Call me a glutton for punishment.  I must have forgotten the agony I lived with because yes, I signed in again this year and figured if nothing else, I would at least get a head start on my newest novel idea.  I swore I wouldn't allow myself to sweat the word count.

I don't know what it is about NaNoWriMo.  There is nothing competitive about the activity.  (Aside from the friendly rival between areas and the screen that shows how many words your writing buddies have written...)  But for some reason, I feel the need to keep up.  Unfortunately, since day 2 I found myself behind by anywhere from 2-4,000 words.  Everyday the distance got larger until finally, with only one more day to go, I am behind by 17,000 words.

I'm out of steam.  I have over 500 e-mails to read, I've got Christmas shopping to do, rooms to clean, laundry to wash, dry, and fold and some friends and family to reconnect with after 30 days. 

There's one good thing to the whole NaNoWriMo 2010 experience.  I've learned that sometimes you just gotta know when to say, "When."