Writing at least 1667 words of fiction every single day makes a month pass by very quickly. It’s hard to believe that it’s already the 26th day of the November challenge. The goal is finally in sight.

In last Friday’s blog post, I mentioned that I had a full calendar of activities planned over last weekend. To my surprise, I managed to get through all those activities and still have time to write in the evening. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pretty, but somehow it worked. Those were definitely the hardest two days of the entire challenge so far. By the time I started week four, I was exhausted and tired of writing. I returned to the keyboard the next day, by a sheer act of will.

I also committed a NaNo-NoNo. I was so unhappy with what I had written on Sunday night, that I revised it on Monday morning before I went on to start my new word-count for the day. The organizers of NaNoWriMo strongly suggest that authors avoid revising their prior writing during the challenge. The idea is to keep moving forward and revise the manuscript later, after the challenge is over. However, I was so dissatisfied with what I had written, that I knew I would think about it until I changed it. Monday was a free day for me, which gave me plenty of time to write.

My mental attitude improved considerably when my word count for the month passed the 40,000-word mark. Suddenly, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now I find myself counting down: “only 7,000 words to go” etc. As it turns out, I may actually meet my goal of 50,000 words earlier than November 30, because there were many days on which I wrote 2,000 words or more. Depending on what happens, I might even reach the goal this weekend.

Thank you to everyone who has stayed with me on this journey so far! It has been an interesting (if tiring) exercise. Wish me luck as I near the finish line!

-Susan 11/26/2021