Did it! Amazing experience, helped by the online Nanowrimo forum, with 200,000 other people doing the same thing all around the world. Dutch high-schoolers and Malaysian retirees and New Zealand farmers, Singapore lawyers and Hong Kong engineers. Everyone talking about it as they’re doing it. Egging each other on. Telling funny stories. Making and soliciting suggestions. Cries for help. Competitions. Excerpts for critiquing. How-to’s for people writing about medieval French history, chameleons, murder by deuterium, dragon mating, the proper warping and beaming of looms, the spices in chicken tikka, etc. Writing Buddies. The online support videos and posts from published authors. The sense of an immense online community engaged in huge set of magical creative hopeful acts against the naysayers and wannabes and critics, and our own doubts and inner censors and resistance and procrastination and sloth.
Word by word. And now, 50,260 words of the first draft of a fantasy novel. Or 106 pages in a Word document. A month of writing. Virtually no editing whatsover, beyond what spell-check does in true robot fashion.
Haven’t looked back at it. Not sure I want to. In any case I need to spend some time away from it. Catch up on this blog, on laundry, dishes.
Free at last! No, not free at all: finished with the first step. Let down a bit, to tell the truth. Adrenaline and all. Time to rest up, pull back from writing for a week, so the first symptoms of carpal tunnel subside (mostly my left arm).
Most productive day — over 5000 words. Had about five of those during the month. Nice to know I can do it. Wow. OK, onward. Get a fire built later (it’s sunny and in the 40s outside), shave, take a shower, write a letter, pay bills. Take a walk. Breathe.
Thank you, Powers of the Worlds, human and incorporeal. Wife, friends, the earth, the gods. And you, my readers, for all good thoughts. (It feels good to thank, to be grateful. An annual holiday for it isn’t often enough, of course. Daily.)
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A Druid Way 