As the title of this post suggests, I officially “won” NaNoWriMo by writing 50,000 words! I had up days and down days, but today, on day 30, I plugged in that final word count to soar over my goal. And it feels fantastic.

What feels better than fantastic, though, is not merely writing 50k words (though,  there’s no “merely” about that…50k words is A LOT). It’s what I managed to do this month aside from just “writing all the words.” I managed to write EVERY DAY, which means a lot to me. I’ve had a difficult year and a difficult time around in my head with concussion-brain and all that, so having the ability to write, period—let alone write every day—is a gigantic accomplishment. I redeveloped my writing habit, and I’m going to stick to it, goshdarnit!

Another thing that I’ve managed to somehow do this year was achieve a work-life balance. Go figure on why it worked out this year and not in past years, but I’m not complaining! I did start doing things differently this year, though, and that seems to have made all the difference. I’ve been chunking down my schedule, doing various activities over bite-sized bits of time, and moving onto the next when the first begins to get dull or I begin to get distracted. In the past, I would just force my way through these lulls, and the result was getting basically no work done because I was bored and distracted. I would write in the next 5 hours the same amount that I wrote in the first 1. 

Now, I flip over to another project. I get up and do something around the house. If I’m writing away from home at a cafe, I’ll go outside and walk around the building. The takeaway here is I need breaks. Whether it’s concussion-brain or just the way I function naturally, I seem to do best working in small spurts and then doing something else, and the cycle continues.

Within chunking out my time, I’ve also prioritized my time and activities, with spending time with my hubby while he and I are both home as priority number 1. I don’t spend every second available with him, but I’ve given him quality time—if not quantity—every time we’ve been home together. He has an erratic work schedule, so that’s not always the case. Some days, it was an hour or two of eating dinner together and relaxing; other days, it was 10 minutes of cuddling in bed while discussing our days. I put him first this year instead of my usual last, and it all came together much better. I should note, though, that he put my writing first, so it wasn’t like he was trying to take all my time and have me not write. It’s a balance that worked.

The last thing that worked amazingly well for me was what those who do bullet-journaling have known for years: graphics help. Visuals help. The NaNoWriMo Municipal Liaison for my region, Hillary Depiano, created cute little calendar scorecards this year, and it took me a while to figure out how I wanted to mark my progress on mine. Did I want to do a checkmark on days I wrote 1,667 words (the daily goal for hitting 50k in a month)? A big X for days I didn’t write? Seriously, it took WAY TOO LONG for me to decide on what to do, but decide I did! I created a pictorial system that worked so well that I got motivated to up my word count just to get to the next image. Here’s the system I used:

2,000+ words: stars in the sky, for being a shining star

1,500-1999: flowers and vines, for my word count growing steadily

1,000-1,499: ocean waves, doing okay but in danger of crashing

1-999: fire, as in “light a fire in your pants,” get moving

0 words: full-black square, BLACK VOID OF DEATH

Yeah. That last one scared me, too, and I wrote every single day to avoid having it on my calendar. Even when my laptop keyboard stopped working in the middle of the month and had to be sent into Apple repair, I still managed to get 200 words that day (my lowest of the month).

I love this system and the motivation it gave me, and I fully plan to continue using it. I’m going to shift a few of the totals and add in a “day off” option during my regularly-scheduled writing program, but the general concept will be the same.

All of this equates to one solid truth: NaNoWriMo isn’t really about writing 50k words. It’s about cranking words onto the page and silencing your inner editor, it’s about writing more than you did in October, and it’s about developing a writing habit and finding a process that works for you. I somehow managed to do ALL of that this month, and it feels fantastic, but I am less excited about the 50k than I am about the other stuff.

And if you attempted NaNoWriMo and managed to write more than you have before, regardless of what that number is? Good for you. You’re a winner in my book!

And, thus, National Novel Writing Month 2018 comes to a close. I wrote every day, I didn’t get sick, I DIDN’T HAVE RANDOM, UNPLANNED SURGERY (like last year, ugh), and I got my mojo back, in both writing and in life. 

I’d call this a pretty doggone successful month. Until next time, NaNoWriMo! You will be missed.