I Did It (And Not in the O.J. Simpson Way)

If you've been following my National Novel Writing Month challenge this month, you'll be happy to know I did it. I wrote 50,000 words of my novel in the month of November. I am a NaNoWriMo winner! Now, these 50,000 words are not my complete novel?it's a little more than halfway done. It is now up to me, without the help of weekly emails and my "I can't, I have to write my novel!" excuse to stay in on a Friday night, to finish it and go from there.

For me, the last eight days, and 15,000 words, of NaNoWriMo went a little something like this:

Wednesday, or approximately words 35,000-37,000: Just keep writing. Who cares if it is crap?

Thursday: Break for Thanksgiving

Friday, or words 37,000-40,000: I have two full days left of the weekend so I rent Thank You For Smoking, bake sugar cookies and write only 3,000 words instead of 5,000.

Saturday, or words 40,000-42,000: I have already written 40,000 words of a novel. I do not have any more words left in me. Trudge through anyway.

Sunday, or words 42,000-45,000: Unbelievable, I am almost there. I can definitely write 5,000 words by Thursday night!

Monday, or words 45,000-46,000: Shhh! I wrote some at work.

Tuesday: Break for the Teen Book Video Awards

Wednesday, or words 46,000-47,000: I only have 4,000 more words to write. I can put most of this off until tomorrow.

Thursday, or words 47,000-50,000: So close I can taste it. Scared that something is going to come up (like talking a friend through a boy crisis; or mediating an argument between my mom and my sister over the phone; or having to watch the new episode of The Office six times because Jim is too darn cute and I can't help myself) that would keep me away from reaching 50,000 when I am so close.

Thursday 8:45 p.m.: Upload my 50,258 words of Microsoft Word to the NaNoWriMo site for official word count: 50,120. Rejoice!

Thursday 9:00 p.m.: Eat brownies and watch The Office to celebrate with my roommate (thank goodness for DVR). Mmm, brownies and Jim.

Excerpt coming?maybe. I have to decide if I hate this or not.