NaNoWriMo: a retrospective

This year, NaNoWriMo ended up being rather interesting for me. I’ve “won”–I reached 50,000 words, and it’s definitely a more promising story than what I had when I last won in 2007.

But will I go back to this story this December?

Nope.

But that doesn’t mean, though, that I feel I’ve “lost” again this year. In 2007, I came out of it pretty much the same as I went in, just with 50,000+ words of a story that was unfinished, with no real desire to finish it.

This year, I come out of it with only a little over 50,000 words, half likely crap, of a story–but with better writing habits and better belief in myself.

Additionally, remember when I said I didn’t have the longevity to write a novel? I think I’ve just had proof that I don’t. I was thinking about this for a while this morning, and I’ve realized that I am generally not a marathon kind of person. I’ve always competed in sprints back in school; I loved web development because there were no long compiles and the UI was just there and easily built up. I like sprinting. It’s what probably drew me to NaNoWriMo in the first place: a novel sprint. But that doesn’t always work out well, because a novel is a long and involved process.

Does that mean I’ll give up ever writing a novel? No. But not now.