Chris Baty sent out one final NaNoWriMo e-mail requesting that people send him some kind of loose essay about themselves and how November went for them. He may or may not put them online (I have no idea), but in the event that he doesn't, here's what I wrote.

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Sure, I'd seen everyone posting on various message boards that they were doing NaNoWriMo. And I thought it was a cool idea ... but just not for me. For one thing, I'd attempted to write fiction for years, and I'd finally come to the conclusion a few years ago that I sucked at it. I kept trying to make my characters not sound like me (after all, isn't that the point of fiction?), and whatever I came up with was just plain bad. I'd decided I was much better at creative nonfiction. Plus I was notorious for flaking out on personal projects that hadn't been assigned to me with a deadline, so of course I knew I'd flake out on something like this within a whopping two days or so. So why sign up?

Yet it kept tempting me. Over and over again, the calls for people to sign up and join the fun. People who didn't write that much ever, people who weren't into fiction, people who were totally busy were signing up. And I did have that fantasy plot that had been going around in my head for a few months... I kept wanting to do it, but no. No, I knew better, no, I knew I could not possibly make it, no, I should not claim I could finish it when I would just bomb out like usual.

I signed up on the last morning possible, wondering what the hell I had done but feeling better for signing up. I didn't know anyone in my town doing it, so for support I signed up on a journalers NaNo list, posted on forums and created a mailing list to send chapters of my novel out on. I figured if I knew people were reading it, it would motivate me to keep on writing.

I had a job where I had to get up at the crack of dawn, so I couldn't start out at midnight like most others were doing, but I got up an hour early and ... managed to crank out enough for that day's word count in an hour! Wow! I was so impressed with myself (plus felt better when I checked the site at work and saw how many were tearing away at it). I swore to be a good girl and only websurf at work during my inactive moments instead of surfing all night for stuff to read at home, and write when I was at home. It worked well.

The first week or so I was a holy terror. I was Speedy Writezales. I broke 10,000 words in days, 20,000 words in a few more days. I was beating everyone I knew for pure speediness (guess that journalism training had paid off). And, dare I say it, it was coming out GOOD. Given the lack of pressure to write something good and publishable and not sounding like me, my main character started out based on me and then went elsewhere, and it was actually working! Woo hoo!

Then, as predicted, I hit the Week of Fatigue. In a way I'd expected that, and thus had planned ahead by getting ahead. But it was disappointing to see how apathetic I was starting to feel. I was churning out a few paragraphs a day, but I was unmotivated to charge along like before. Then came something even worse: Bad News Day. Bad News Day completely threw me for a loop, and suffice it to say that I was just not in the mood to write for about five days.

I finally felt like getting into it again after that, and was surprised to find out that despite my week off, I was exactly on track for where I was supposed to be at mid-month. (Good thing I wrote ahead, huh?) I busted my butt to keep on track with everyone else for a few days, then managed to speed on ahead again. 30,000 hit, then 40,000, then before you know it, and four days early ... I hit 50,000! Holy crap, I did it!

I do wonder a bit about how the novel influenced real life, though... I had planned for my main character (who held a job I used to have) to lose hers, but I ended up getting laid off myself. Ironically, on Nov. 30. (Sheesh, wait till AFTER NaNoWriMo!)

I do plan to continue on with it- 50,000 took me up to a big crisis point in the novel, but there's still plenty to go. Besides, one of my notify list people is addicted and is insisting on more chapters, and I've got plenty of free time now ...

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