For the second straight year, I won National Novel Writing Month, where the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. It's something like running a marathon, but with words.

Last year, I decided to do it at the very last minute, and soldiered through even though my story was pretty disjointed. At the end, I was proud of having written so many words, but I didn't feel like it was a "real" novel. Still, it unlocked a flood of creativity for me, and really got me past my self-imposed writer's block.

This year, I had a really good idea up front, and spent a lot of time researching and planning. And though this story is still very much a draft, I can see a solid framework in it. I feel like I've written a "real" story.

That said, I'm not quite finished. I'm about 2/3 of the way through my outline. I hope to finish the story in December (at someone of a more relaxed pace), take a few weeks' break from it, and come back and start polishing next year. I want to have something that people will want to read by the end of 2009...

But this is a good start to that, so .. yay, me!

So, yesterday at about 5:30, I finished my novel. I am now, officially, a novelist.

My Author Page

It seemed appropriate to finish at work, since everyone at work was so supportive. My friend Jay had bugged me (nicely) about my novel every day - sending me daily text messages demanding my word count and shouting as he walked past me in the halls: "Write! Write like the wind!" My officemate (and resident Greek God), Michael, had chosen my novel idea for me out of three front-runners on Halloween day, and had listened patiently while I whined about plot problems. One of my managers actually was an original Municipal Liaison for NaNoWriMo back in the day, so she constantly had words of support.

So, at the end of the day yesterday, I took my laptop into a conference room, and banged out the last 800 words. (Yes, I actually ended the story, too.) When I was done, I walked into Jay's office with the laptop. He dropped everything that he was doing, and we pressed the button where I submitted my word count to the site. When it flashed up the words "You Won", I got more emotional than I expected. Jay was SO happy for me; he hugged me for a good minute, then found another designer to fill out the downloadable winner's certificate with my name in pretty handwriting. Michael, of course, pretended not to care and that he wasn't proud (he and I have that big sister/little brother thing going), but he SO was. :) As good as it felt to win, it was even sweeter because they were there.

The real point of this was that in all my years as a writer, I've never finished anything this long. I've never actually finished a book. Yes, it is rough and needs to be rewritten, but it's FINISHED. Plus, how many years have I wanted to do NaNoWriMo, and always talked myself out of it - I was too busy, my writing sucked, I was not good enough, etc. And as I said to Jay (when he called me cause he just had to say congratulations AGAIN), this is one of those "if, then" accomplishments - if I can do this, then I can do anything!

Now, on to the next one. (Although, the first thing I did was go out and buy an Xbox 360; I've been lusting to play Oblivion again, and refused to allow myself to get it until I finished my book...)