Monday, November 30, 2009

And I'm Done



What’s Jack up to? Jack is doing well. He’s up and at ‘em and ready for a relaxing week after having a long and wild weekend with the family. At least I hope so. I know I'm ready for a fairly relaxing week so I hope Jack is on board with that.

Well, it’s November 30th the last day for NaNoWrimo 50,000 word challenge and I’m happy to report that I’ve completed it with 54,194 words. I went a little over since I started with a few words in this story. This was my first Nano and it was one of the hardest and most rewarding experiences of my writing life.


Speaking of hardest I had one crazy day on Friday in my post Thanksgiving stupor where I wrote 10,000 words. I would not recommend this for anyone. I think I was sleep writing at one point and had to get up and hop around the house a bit. Splash some water on my face.
In my head I was Rocky and had a little Burgess Meredith pushing me on. Making sure I wouldn’t give up and there were plenty of times I wanted to. At 20,000 and again at 27,000 and again at 35,000 words. But once I got close to 40 I knew there was no turning back.



A life saver, well, NaNo saver for me was Write or Die over at Dr. Wicked’s writing lab. It really forced me to write without thinking and let go of that inner critic. At one point when I was complaining about how hard it was to think up something else to write my son gave me a great reminder when he said, “You don’t write what you think Mom, you write what you feel.” Such wise words.


Now I know that this story will take about 20- 25,000 more words to finish and at least 10,000 of the hot mess I'm-so-tired words will be cut, but hey, I'll be crossing that bridge next month and maybe even next year. Yeah, probably into next year.


Well, that’s it for me and my NaNo journey. I want to thank all of you for your encouraging words. They meant so much and to my RWA/NYC NaNo crew a big thanks too. I’m so glad I joined you for the ride. Oh and all my NaNo tweeting buddies. You rock hard!

Now onto that layer of dust that had been sitting for the past month.

Best,
Kwana

15 comments:

###### said...

good for you girl!

Leciawp said...

Congrats on the word challenge!

I too am ready for a relaxing week, but fear I'm not going to get it. (The kids don't have school again until Wednesday (good Lord!).)

Formerly known as Frau said...

Whoot Whoot !! Way to go Kwana!

pve design said...

I am "speechless!"
That is cause for a celebration!

Purple Flowers said...

Congratulations on reaching your goal. I like what you son said about writing from your heart - so true.

Debra said...

GOOD FOR YOU Kwana! Must feel so good to start off a week knowing that you have accomplished such a huge task-albeit a great one. Enjoy a nice day-all to yourself!

Braque68 said...

AWESOME! I knew you could do it!! I am so excited for you!

Ina in Alaska said...

YAY!!! I put a picture of the "writer" license plate on my blog today for you xoxo

Kristen Painter said...

Congrats!

Amanda McCabe/Amanda Carmack/Laurel McKee said...

Hooray Kwana!!!! That is a massive amount of writing. :) (I'm just starting to dive deep into a book now, so no relaxing week for me...)

Elizabeth Kerri Mahon said...

Congrats Kwana!

Mary-Laure said...

Wow, I hadn't heard about that challenge but it's quite a feat to have completed it. Kudos to you!

Christine said...

Congrats!!! :D

If you get rid of all the dust, how can anyone leave you secret love notes throughout the house? LOL Kidding!!! Or not? ;)

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's amazing. It's not easy getting a story down in such a short amount of time, so kudos to you!!!

Laura @ the shorehouse. said...

Just having Burgess Meredith in my head would empower to push on...you can only listen to that voice for so long! :-)

Seriously, congratulations!! That really is quite incredible.

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