NaNoWriMo - I Did It!

I reached and exceeded my word count for NaNoWriMo! I hit the 51,612th word this afternoon, one day before the end of November.

I am now left with a thinly fictionalized memoir that is in deep need of multiple revisions, followed by excessive proofing.

Most of what I wrote is abysmal. I decided from the start that I must allow myself to let it flow. I even laid off my internal editor for the entire month of November. He's glad not to have to look at what I wrote. He took a sneak peak about mid-month and started screaming at me about relevancy and deeper meaning. That got him locked out for the duration of the month.

All in all, NaNoWriMo left me with the following lessons:

1. It's always best to write from the cuff if you hope to meet a predetermined word count goal by the time the deadline rolls around.
2. It's not so hard to write a memoir. I rarely got hung up on details and story ideas, as I was pulling from personal experience.
3. 50,000 words isn't actually that much. It's a little over 110 pages in MS Word.
4. To achieve a goal, it works best when you set a deadline.
   

Now I'm going to let this novel percolate for awhile. I am considering turning it into a series with much more fictionalization of the characters involved. But, that will come later.

For now, there's an erotic fiction writing contest that I have been inspired to participate in. The word count is only 3000-5000 words. Suddenly, that many words seems like it would be a cinch to write.