NaNo Winning

I try not to blow my own trumpet but sometimes it has to be done.
After several years of trying I finally won at NaNo! I wrote 50,000 words in November and that is so much more than I've ever managed before. I am mostly happy with what I've written - I know, there will be flaws to discover when I edit but so far, so good. I feel really proud of myself and that's not a feeling I have often.

So what have I learned from all this? The most important thing that I learned was that I can do it. I can sit and write for a few hours; I can put words on the computer and do it all again the next day; I can write and most of what I write is good. There, I said it, I can write well and it's something I enjoy doing. This is a big thing for me so it feels right to celebrate it here.

I also learned that I can write in a genre that is not the one I usually choose. The NaNo novel is a fantasy type novel which is something I have read before but never tried to write. I'm not sure I will write only fantasy from now on but it is interesting to do something different. And maybe that is why I won this time because I was doing something outside my comfort zone and it just seemed to flow.

The last thing I learned is that I want to get better and do more writing. I've always felt a little guilty at putting time aside to write - there's always something else I 'should' be doing, right?  Well now I've decided not to bother with the guilt! I'm a writer so I have to spend time writing. It's not a waste of time, it's what I have to do.

So as the year draws to a close I am still writing the NaNo novel and I intend to complete it. So at some stage I'll start worrying about whether it's any good, how do I edit it etc. Join me on that ride in 2017!

I'm sharing this on What I'm Writing.