Fall Fancies - I Won!

I won NaNoWriMo!

What that means, simply, is that I wrote 50,000 words (almost 50,300 words, to be exact) of what may or may not be part of a novel, in 30 days.  Since this took place in November, I can consider it a Fall Fancy.  Hurray for me!

Right now, I have an Open Office document with 50,300 raw, unedited words.  I have no idea if they are coherent words, or worthwhile words, or even interesting words.  For all I know, the document may never see the light of day.

So, was it worth it?

Yes.  (And many thanks to my long suffering spouse.  I promise I will now clean the house.  On the other hand, maybe I'll just sleep for a week.)

1.  I now have a small idea (a VERY small idea) of just how HARD it is to write.  I will never look at a book in the same way again.

2.  I healed a wound that had dragged me down these past 14 months.  I had felt guilt over being away on vacation when a natural disaster hit my area and left me better off than so many in my neighborhood.  And then I lived through it again when a number of family members lived through the wrath of Hurricane Sandy.  One of my cousins, in fact, just got back into his home this past Saturday.

And here I was, unable to help them.  I could only send them encouragement.

3. My fictional memoir was a liberation.  I brought my Mom, dead since 1965, back to life and got to know her as an adult and as a long-distance caretaker.  I had the daughter I never was able to have.  I interacted with three fictional grandchildren.  (I also had to struggle with whether to kill my Mom off during the course of the story.)

Now I have to decide if I will try to edit this manuscript, or if I should just consider it a one month exercise in self-healing and keep it as a souvenir of recovery.

But, I did win. And now I can sit back and actually read some of the writers forums on the NaNoWriMo site. And bask in the glow of knowing that, whatever else I did in my life, I actually wrote 50,000. words in a month.

Will I do it again? Well, many women know what it is like to give birth.  We lie there on the delivery table and swear we will never do it again.

And then many of us do it again.

Never say never.

Check with me next November.