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That’s what ‘almost finished’ looks like.  Its a lot like ‘didn’t finish.’  And, to be honest, I’m okay with that.  Dont get me wrong, I’m not so mature about my loss that I don’t want you to see the week or so in the beginning where I was sick and overworked and didn’t write at all.  I’m super-proud of two things there: first, that I didn’t quit like I really wanted to and, second, of the come-back that I made.

To be honest, I probably could have completed the challenge, but I didn’t make many sacrifices for it.  After all, I feel like my family sacrifices time with me (if they see it as a sacrifice or a break is another question) often enough, and I want to see them again.

But, I wrote.  A lot.  More, I think, than I’ve ever written in the same time span.  And, with that, came a few lessons for me:

Writing About Anything Helps Me Think About It.  Back when I had free time, or, when I prioritized my free time differently, I was a huge fan of journaling.  I really think that everybody should write a page per day about whatever they feel like: it’s therapeutic for me, and it helps you focus.  For me, writing about something helps me to think about it: my thoughts are most clear in written form.

I went ahead and applied that to my NaNoWriMo Project.  Every day I’d begin by formatting the text a little differently and simply writing a paragraph about whatever was currently blocking my thoughts–just get it out, and then focus on what’s important–and then I’d free write my reactions to what I’d written the day before and my goals for what I was about to write.

I found that really helped to alleviate writer’s block.  Or, rather, it helped me to avoid it all together.  I knew what I was trying to do with that segment, I knew where I was going.  I wrote.

Accepting Imperfection Makes Progress Possible.  This is one of those lessons that, I think, can easily be applied to other things, from running to cooking and parenting.  Basically, knowing that I was going to try and improve on what I was doing, but that I had to first get a rough draft out.  So, accepting that it doesn’t have to be perfect made it possible for me to do it at all.  I don’t know how many of the footnotes that I put into the text say things like “Really?  This is the best I can come up with here?  Let’s hope that it gets better with the rewrite.”

For Once, It’s Okay To Be Verbose.  Yeah, my NaNo Project File includes all of what I called my ‘meta-writing,’ the writing I did about my writing.  It included the footnotes in which I just told myself I was an idiot.  And all of that counted towards my total word-count.

It was very liberating, not just because it made getting to my daily word count goal easier, but because it was something to do with my writing time when I knew that I wasn’t making progress.  I’d just do a bit about about a character and I learned a lot about my characters doing that.

All in all, I think I made a great start on a good writing project, even if I didn’t finish the way I’d like to.

What I Want To Do Different Next Year:  Basically, I wish I’d spent more time on the planning beforehand.  It’s not a natural strength of mine, but it’s what really made the attempt possible: knowing in advance who the people were in the action, having an idea of what direction things were going in.

I don’t think it’d be a good idea to lock yourself into a pre-written synopsis of the plot from the get-go.  But, I did know my conflict and who the bad guys were.  What made the biggest different was the character profiles I’d prepared in advance.  They made character reactions a bit easier to write and, I think, will be the backbone of the finished project.

Look for more on the project, soon.  It is, after all, ongoing!