Awe this is the last NaNoWriMo journal update for the year. Not sure if I’m sad about that or happy. Yep, that was me being totally sarcastic. Anyway, I wanted to do a small update and recap/end NaNoWriMo for the year here on the blog.

This year has been a whirlwind of a year for me, NaNoWriMo included in that. So let’s chat about NaNoWriMo and then we can chat about what has happened since I finished!

NaNoWriMo 2021

As you probably already know, I did complete/win NaNo this year. Now I was a total NaNo Rebel this year and worked on the second book in my series that I had already worked on the previous year for NaNo. Right now the draft sits just over 100,000 words. It’s actually at 104,698 words. The plan is to get it to about 130,000. Not sure if that will happen, but that’s the goal.

I’m actually really happy with the way this book is going and can’t wait to see how it all turns out once I’m finished drafting and self-editing. In the past I’ve hated the first draft of my books, but for this one that isn’t the case. I guess that’s because this story has been in my head for years and I’m able to just flow right through it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have any problems while writing it though. I did have to sit down with my Alpha reader (my amazing mom) and chat about a few things, but all in all, I love it so far.

After NaNoWriMo 2021

Now after I finished NaNo this year I needed a break, so that’s what I did. I finished NaNo the third week of the month and for the next two weeks, I took a break. I took time to read and time for myself. Something I really didn’t do while I was getting those words down during NaNo. Now the plan is to pick it all backup and get back to work.

First I’m going to finish the first draft and put that THE END on the bottom of the document. I’m actually pretty close. Right now I’ve got four more chapters to write and it should be finished. Totally crossing my fingers here, if it goes like First to Fight did, I’ll end up adding at least two more chapters after the four. We shall see what happens.

Of course, after finishing the first draft, I’ll let it sit for a few weeks while I work on revisions and formating the first book in the series. Since the plan is still to have it released at the end of January so I have some major work to finish there.

All in all, it’s been a great year and a fantastic NaNoWriMo for me. I hope you all had a great NaNo and for those of you that didn’t complete/win, remember you got words down that’s all that matters, and if you didn’t you at least tried. Honestly, my take on that is if you got even one word down, you’re still a winner. NaNoWriMo is hard! I enjoy the push, the thrill of trying to hit that goal every single day. Can’t wait to do it again next year.