Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration.

But that was probably the toughest NaNoWriMo I ever managed to push to conclusion. I mean, yeah, drama and angst and illness and work and distraction and …

Well, let’s just say rather than Writing Monkeys or Plot Bunnies I had NaNo Eagles this year.

I had a really hard time focusing this NaNo month.  I mean, look at that calendar. A whole heck of a lot of red days where I did nada. Fridays in particular, suffering from end-of-work-week burn-out.

On the other hand, look at those Tuesdays and Saturdays.  Write-ins, every week.  Give me an assigned time to write, and I am there and it is on.

Or, conversely, give me a chance to make excuses and … not so much.

*Sigh*

The graph also tells the tale.  There are a hell of a lot of plateaus there — days (in sequence) where there were no words.  Not “just a few words” — but “no words.”

Which, of course, flies in the face of all that stuff I blogged about earlier in the month, and shame on me, and all that.

But I did it.

That curve in the last five days of the month?  Yeah, I did that.  And I’m damned proud of it.

Here’s something else I’m proud of (although in a vaguely abashed way): I finished the story.

Yup.  Donne & Donne, File 1: Gunsmoke and Jasmine.  Finished.  Took two NaNos, and a net word count of 101,731 words, but I wrapped it up in a neat little bow, with hooks for future volumes, and booyah.

Yeah, I was the one at the beginning of this year thinking I was a few days, maybe a week of writing, and figuring out how to convert editing time into word count for NaNo purposes (note to self: 1,000 words per hour is the rough number to work by). And I barely managed to get the story into the allotted 30 days.

But I did.  And the word count. Which is doubly good.

And the last bits were gut-wrenchers, which makes the accomplishment doubly-emotional.

Whew.

So … what now?

Well, how about this?  My NaNoWriMo local moderator is interested in continuing on with a writing/editing group.  And I’m going to attend, weekly. Which means all the editing this novel desperately needs (Overall timeline; Frisco geography; Chinese mythology; names I didn’t have time to go back and look up; adding in some more senses; picking up some loose ends; etc.) might actually happen.

Am I aiming toward actual publication?  Hell, I don’t know.  It needs a solid edit. Or two. Or twelve. At this point, I’m looking toward having something that I could share with friends (esp. those of the writerly persuasion) and family (sorry, wait for rev. 1) and not be embarrassed by. Anything beyond that is frosting on the cake.

Meantime? I’ll take credit for making it through NaNoWriMo 2011.  I honestly didn’t think I would make it.