Writers: My True Story of What Happens After You Win NaNoWriMo

Tweet Pic when I crossed the finish line!

Yes, I actually wrote more than 50,000 words of my novel last November!

When I first started talking about this writing competition 3 months ago,
it sounded totally nuts. In 30 days, I contemplated chaining myself to my computer to produce 50,000 words. I weighed the pros and cons, and even other writers told me they wouldn't bother doing it.

I really had a lot going on in my personal life in November, but I jumped into NaNoWriMo anyway. National Novel Writing Month turned out to be truly awesome for one reason alone:

I got writing support.

Up until now, I've been quite used to going it alone. I felt, like many, that you can't be original unless you isolate yourself from the crowd so that you have the full freedom to do your own thing. But the problem with that is that writing a novel takes a tremendous amount of stamina. No matter how long you've been writing (and I've been at it for about 7 years total), you will eventually hit blocks and want to quit. But when you feel part of a writing community, then you can find inspiration from others like you to push through it and obliterate those writing blocks.

I started tweeting my goals to other NaNoWriMo warriors, and through the support of Gifs and great quotes, we kept going despite everything. Sharing my progress each day with others helped me stay accountable to myself to do something every day to stay focused on the book, and eventually the momentum I picked up from what I like to call "divine inspiration" took on a life of its own, carrying me to places I've never gone while writing before.

I even joined new groups of people in "finish-our-books-by-the-end-of-the-year" buddies, and I made "10,000 words a week" pals too!

Then I couldn't stop writing!

I hit the opposite of writer's block, and I didn't even know that existed.

I hit the writer's internal waterfall.

Giphy.com

It's the moment when you're afraid to stop writing because if you stop for just one moment, then you'll forget one of the 100 new great ideas you have. It's exhausting, incredible and kinda terrifying. I even had to take a day off of work so that my brain wouldn't explode. I just had to get the rest of the story out of my head so that I could devote at least half of my brain to focusing on the rest of the world again.

The momentum I'd built up with everyone pulled me through until I finished the entire first draft at 77,289 words by December 6!

Here's everything I got out of it in a nutshell:

1. I made friends online with an amazing group of really supportive writers I could relate to, and we love nothing more than cheering each other on! Now granted, I found more of them on Twitter than the NaNoWriMo platform itself, but still... totally worth it. Thus, writing became more fun.

2. I began a habit of writing at the same time every day no matter what, and somehow it began awakening more creativity and made the ideas flow more easily.

3. I'm getting critique partners now! -Really good ones too. This is absolutely priceless for any writer, and it's helping me develop my work so much more.

Now with revisions underway and ideas for a sequel I hadn't originally planned popping up, it's going to be a great new writing year!