Well I’m gonna call the month of November an 85% success.

Pros – I crossed the finish line at about 8:45pm Tuesday night. That is to say I write over fifty thousand words. I don’t think they were fifty thousand crappy words. I’m pretty sure it makes for a coherent yarn and I like large chunks of it. It needs work (and it needs to be finished), but what do you expect? If you want to beta read it once I’ve finished and made one edit run through let me know.

I grew a frickin’ awesome trucker ‘stache and will be maintaining it either through December or until Leigh complains. After that we’ll see.

The snowflake method, or as much of it as I used, worked pretty well. The story deviated somewhat from the outlining I did, but the over all arc has stayed the same. I think it was a HUGE help in keeping me on track. If I had actually done all the steps it might have helped even more. Next time I use it (perhaps as early as February, I want to write two novels a year starting in 2011), I will use all the steps.

Cons – I raised no money for either Movember or the Office of Letters and Light. I did donate some money to the latter cause personally. If you want to rectify that, I think you still can.

I didn’t finish the story. This was actually part of my personal goal for the month. I wanted to not just cross the finish line, but to have a completed 1st/0th draft.

Overall I’m not too bummed about either of those things. Money was raised by some. Life will go on. I will finish the story. I plan on it being done this time next week.

It’s a solid B earned in the face of migraines, strep throat, colds, work, Thanksgiving, family time, the threat that was “The Walking Dead” and a host of other things. You can see my word count breakdown here:

NaNoWriMo gets a lot of heat from people in the writing community and I understand some of it. This may well be my last one since I plan on doubling my output and November just isn’t the best month. Or I may pull a Brand Gamblin and participate unofficially so I can cheer on my friends and compete with my adversaries.

If you did it then you’ve learned some things, one of which may be that you just don’t need a special occasion to write a novel. I know I don’t.