NANOWRIMO 2020 WRAPUP (IN WHICH COVID HELPS ME WIN NANO)

IT'S OVER. 

NANOWRIMO 2020 IS DONE. 

how we all feel right now

YOU. GUYS. I can't BELIEVE NaNoWriMo is already over!! (Technically the last day's not over yet buuut... you get the idea.) I feel like I just spent a month in the quantum realm and then got ejected in the middle of the desert. Like... what just happened?? Am I still alive? What even is the real world?? 

But somewhere along in that mad craziness that is NaNo, I WROTE 50K. So, I guess it was a productive time in the quantum realm, anyway. ;P 

Partway through the month I kind of... gave up on keeping track of my day-to-day progress? I guess with my daily word count being so up-and-down, I just kind of lost my motivation to record them. It's not exactly a lot of fun to write update posts when I go days without writing. 

Which is fine! Sometimes you can't write every day, and that's absolutely okay. I had to keep reminding myself of that this month, and surprisingly, it wasn't that hard. I was actually pretty easy on myself this NaNo, because I knew I couldn't afford not to be. I also knew I couldn't afford not to write like a crazy person so hahaha that was a great balance

I also fell by the wayside with my vlogging. I don't think I've picked my camera up since the second week. I'm still trying to decide if I want to throw together the footage I got that week and go ahead and post it; and maybe film a wrapup video so I don't just leave it hanging. But we'll see what happens there. 

So I hear you asking: How did NaNo go? Well, funny you should ask. It was an interesting one, to be sure. 

I mean, look at my stats:

Definitely the most inconsistent NaNo I've ever had. xD

I hit the halfway point on the 19th, and then... stopped writing for like five days. Yeah. Not what you want to do when the month's coming to a close and you're only at 25k. But I kept telling myself, Thanksgiving break is coming up, x day's coming up, etc., and you'll have time to catch up then. 

Then I got COVID. 

Yep, the 'rona officially hit me. Actually, it hit over half of my family. (We're all doing fine!) And you can probably guess the frustration. My little introverted self has been longing for the extra time at home it seems the rest of the world has been getting this year, and when do I finally get it? RIGHT before Thanksgiving. Meaning- my family wasn't able to get together as planned. 

BUT. It actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Because I'm not gonna lie, if it weren't for the extra time off work, I may not have been able to crawl back out of my writing ditch. So, hey, a mild case of COVID in exchange for extra writing time? I guess I'll take it. xD 

So, with all that new free time, I hit a couple milestones during the last week! First of all, I HAD MY FIRST 10K DAY. 

I've been wanting to do a 10k day for a while. I mean, it's not on my bucket list or anything, but in the back of my mind I just always knew that eventually I wanted to do it. And I've come close, with my highest word count being around 8.5k, I think? But it just never happened. 

BUT. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving I COMMITTED and IT HAPPENED. I hit 10k!! And the weird thing? Was that I felt like I could have done more. Not like I felt let down or anything, and even though it was early in the evening when I hit 10k I stopped writing for the day and did some reading. But it just didn't feel like I'd written that much AT ALL, and I hadn't even spent every waking moment writing. I had taken plenty of breaks throughout the day. Basically, it just didn't leave me as drained of time and energy as I thought it would.

Guess that just leaves room for a 15k day. ;)

So, long story short, somehow I completed the last half of NaNo in the last week. 25k in 6 days. I hit 50k yesterday, on the 29th, winning my third NaNoWriMo in a row! :D This also means that I've now won as many NaNos as I haven't won. 2021, I'm coming for you to break the tie. ;)

(how perfect is this year's NaNo theme for my story???)

Oh, and I forgot to mention: COVID took my sense of smell. And taste. Which means... I couldn't burn candles to write by. And I COULDN'T. TASTE. MY. COFFEE. OR. CHOCOLATE. 

Yeeeeah. All that chocolate I stocked up on before NaNo? Oh, don't get me wrong, I ate a good bit of it. And I still had my share of coffee this month. But in the last week or so, there just wasn't any point because I couldn't TASTE any of it. Honestly, I don't know how I made it to 50k like that. xD but you can bet when my taste comes back I'll be hitting the rest of that chocolate stash HARD

So there it is- COVID helped me win NaNo AND set a personal daily word count record. In a weird twist of fate, 2020 actually did something good. xD And no, I haven't given you much information about my actual book in this post... but that's for next time. ;) 

As far my writing plans going forward? Well, as much as I'd like to, I most likely will NOT be attempting to finish my book this year. Chances are, I'll pick up the tail end of that project in April for Camp, as tends to be my pattern now. I might continue writing a bit just to get the scenes that are still in my head out, but we'll see. 

But I DO want to keep writing through December, because I'm in somewhat of a groove now and I don't want it to stop. Plus, with the semester (finallyyy) being almost over, I'll have some extra time there, too. Originally, I planned to try to bring Roots to Claim back out and finish the second draft of it. But I'm also wanting to kick back and write some flash fiction, so we'll see which wins out. Who knows, maybe I'll do both? All I know is, I'm so relieved for NaNo to be over. You guys know I LOVE NaNoWriMo every year, but if you've ever done it, you also know how great it is to be done with it, too. xD

Thank you all SO much for your support during this NaNo! You'll never know how much it means to me and inspires me to keep writing. (And Trentley and Jynnia think it's pretty cool to have fans before their book is even close to being in the condition to publish!) I truly appreciate you all so much. *chocolate and hugs* *especially if you made it to the end of this rambly post*

But enough about me!! Fellow Wrimos, how did your month go?? What's the current status of your story? Tell me everything in the comments!! And celebrate with me because NANO IS OVER!! *confetti*