It’s the last day of NaNoWriMo.

Some of us have finished and are writing on, others are finishing, some have given up and some of us are still plodding on with our stories even though we have no chance of finishing in time.

No matter where you are I’d like to offer you a hearty congratulations and good luck with your next steps. Even if you didn’t reach 50,000 you still started something and that is so much more than many people can say for themselves this month.

We all started something new and no matter how many words we did or didn’t write, we have a new life in our hands.

We’ve built new worlds this month.

We’ve written bleary eyed paragraphs this month.

We’ve bonded together through our struggles and our triumphs.

I’m proud of us.

I am currently amongst the small group of writer’s who reached 50k and are still writing. My story isn’t over. There’s so much more to my character’s story arcs than I could’ve ever thought. To think that at the beginning of the month, I looked at the scrappy scene outline and mourned my chances  I thought that I barely had enough of a story to make it to 20k much less past 50k.  I proved myself wrong.

Now, the month is over.

We re-enter the busy thrones of society and dance amongst the crowds during this holiday madness, leaving this month as a mere memory in our long journey of life.  I have some shopping to do, some sleep to catch up on, and exams to study for.

Let your story sit for a month, once you’re done and then come back to it.  You’ll have fresher eyes and a better idea of the mess you’ve made this month.  Not that you’ll probably have time to do much damage with the busy Holiday season coming up.

Take time and relax. Celebrate with a nice meal or treat yourself like I will with some baked treats.  You wrote a heck of a lot of words and that’s something to be proud of whether you hit 50k or not. I’m so proud of us.

Now I’m signing off for the month and hopefully I won’t be writing again for a very, very long time.

Stay safe.

Elisa

expected word count: 50,000

actual word count: 51,846

Central NJ total word count: 10.8 million