NaNoWriMo and the Thrill of Completion

A few hours ago, I finished writing my first novel. Just being able to write that phrase feels novel in itself, particularly after thinking about writing one for so long. And now that it's done, I have to laugh because it was really so much easier than I ever expected.One might think this would be because I've been a professional writer for so long... something about having already written a nonfiction book, short stories, plays, screenplays, speeches, and thousands of articles and blog posts. It's not that at all. Most of those things took significant research. This book was a total departure from the heavy, nonfiction work I've done for so many years. This time, I sat down and decided to write a simple story - pure fiction and fantasy. And it felt really good.My work departed from fiction as soon as I graduated from college. I stepped away from that writing and took on a serious career in technology, security, communications, business, startups, etc. etc. and then my writing took me back, full circle. I've written about that journey elsewhere and don't want to take the time here now, but the bottom line is I was not reading much fiction during the past two decades.So this book I just wrote - a YA fantasy book - it all came from the recesses of my mind, from the fantasy stories of my youth, favorite memories buried deep in my psyche. And the rest of it was completely made up. Of course my long-term writing and typing skills played into the completion, but let's be honest: I've never been the type of writer who can sit down and write x amount of pages every day. This month of NaNoWriMo was the first time I've ever done that.No, you say, that can't be the case. You were a major blogger for a long time and you wrote a 250 page book! Nope. I binge wrote blog posts and pre-loaded them into the blogs so they would carry through the week. I binge wrote my book, mostly in two weekends in a Residence Inn. I never wrote daily, ever in my life before this. (Unless you count email and texting, which I don't.)So this month was a huge experiment in habit changing for me. I know others who have gone through NaNoWriMo have said the same thing about it. I knew what I was getting into. I read the book, I followed my friends' journeys doing it in the past. But I never had a November where I wasn't traveling. This was the first time! So I took full advantage.Some of the things that worked for me: first, setting a realistic daily goal. I told myself 1500 words, even though that was less than the amount I really needed, just because it sounded easier than 1667 over 30 days to reach 50,000. Second, I wouldn't let myself do the fun things I wanted to do each day without getting my minimum word count completed first. If I wanted to read or watch a TV show, too bad. I had to finish writing.The third big thing that helped (in my case, as a night owl) was that I started writing the first night at midnight and several of the other nights, I gave myself a jump start at midnight, so that by the time I got to work on writing again later in each day, I already had a word count started, whether it was 115 words or 1607 words... there was something already there, so I didn't feel like I was staring at an empty screen.The fourth thing that helped me along was my song mix. I took NaNoWriMo's advice (you get an extra badge for this) and made myself a mix of songs that fit the theme of my book. When I was having trouble getting excited about writing, I put in my earbuds and cranked up the tunes. Worked like a charm.I took more advice from my friend, Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo, who said to never take more than two days off of writing. I had tried participating in NaNoWriMo two times before, and that was what did me in those times. So I made myself keep on writing, even on the days I didn't feel like it. That was hard, but I did it.Friends made a difference too. I had a handful of friends participating in this year's 'wrimo and it was fun watching their progress on the NaNoWriMo buddy chart. (The NaNoWriMo website is super helpful also, in many ways -- their progress chart and badges in particular.) Knowing I had friends who were going through the same thing made all the difference. They inspired and motivated me to keep going, both through their words of encouragement and just the fact they kept racking up their word counts.I also made a short list (before I even got started writing) of things I was consciously giving up on - or at least cutting back on significantly - for the month. I cut back on meetings. (As a professional writer, I can get away with that... using the "I'm on deadline" excuse works like a charm.) I cut back on social media. I cut back on email. I also cut back on other writing projects -- but surprisingly, I didn't need to completely stop work, because I was writing daily. This all worked because it was only for one month, one week of which was a holiday week for most people anyway, and because I allowed myself to have little rewards and didn't completely remove any one thing from my life.Finally, I got close enough I could smell victory at 43,000 words and I just decided to get on with it and finish the thing. So I kept writing through the weekend, getting my requisite caffeine, taking breaks for walks, pondering where to take the story while doing housework, etc., and I got done.It was surreal watching the word counter get to 50,000. I'd never actually written anything in one document like that. With my nonfiction book, I wrote each chapter in a different document, so I never counted the words. I just watched the pages of each chapter and had a total page number goal of 250. I charted the chapters in a spreadsheet and one day I hit 250. So 50,000 this time around somehow felt more daunting.In fact, it was so distracting, I turned away from the keyboard and kept typing along with my story while not looking (thanks to Mr. Gould, my 7th grade typing teacher, for that skill) so that I could focus on the characters and not on my exciting numeric goal. But when it was done, it felt great. I gave myself extra time to celebrate, because life always gets in the way of these things. (Stories for another time.)The other surprising thing about the experience: my writing came out much better than I expected. I'm actually happy with my first draft. I usually hate my first drafts. But this was another thing Chris wrote in his book, No Plot? No Problem! He said that if you quit worrying so much about the quality and just focus on the quantity, the pressure's off, and you have a better flow to your work. (I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea.)I of course hit a few snags along the way, like the California fires making the air so bad we had to close up our house and hide in bedrooms with air purifiers. That made life a little complicated for a while. And my laptop decided to run like a slug. Word was taking so long, it was like waiting for a 300 baud modem connection (only real geeks like me will get that one). And I injured my shoulder, so that didn't help things, but I stayed focus on daily goals, rather on the big number, and that did the trick.But what's the book about, you ask? It's about two magical sisters who go on an adventure with their mother, various family members, and other friends they meet along the way. They seek out a hidden fortress in order to save their world. It's called Celestial Fortress. I wrote it for my daughter. At some point, I'll do some revisions and maybe put it out there into the world. For now, it's a personal project that I'm happy to have completed. Now I can say I'm a novelist, and it was a lot of fun getting here.