Survival of the Fittest

NaNoWriMo...it's over. If you participated you either felt that rush that came from a job well done or you faced defeat yet pride over how many words you did manage to do (because it definitely is a feat!).

Some people ask me if I'm going to do it again next year. My answer is always the same.

I don't know.

"But you felt that sense of accomplishment that you called priceless!! Why wouldn't you want that again?" you ask.

Let me tell you what I learned from NaNo and maybe you'll understand.

---I learned that I can do it. I have NEVER completed a novel before, but I have started lots of them. Well, not since high school, but still. Perhaps thats why the smell of victory was so euphoric for me.

---I learned that if you love what you are writing, and it's familiar to you, the words will easily flow. And they did. I started An Unlikely Hero at the tail end of the second week, and still hit the 50,000 word mark. And only because I'm a big fantasy freak fan.

---I learned that it's true what they say about your story evolving. The direction I started in and the direction I ended in are two vastly different things. I have to do serious editing in the beginning to make it flow, but that's okay. I still love my characters so much that I want to bring Galain back from the dead and kill him all over again. And what's awesome about writing is that I can. I absolutely can.

---I learned that I can stay up all night, hitting the pillow around 6 am, wake up at 8 am, and still function. Well, you wouldn't have liked me til around noon, but I was up. :D

But most of all?

I learned that November virtually disappears. NaNoWriMo is the daylight savings time to the literary world. Instead of moving forward an hour, it's a whole month. Poof! Gone.

And I'm not sure I like that.