NaNoWriMo is a Go

What the what?! I'm actually succeeding somewhat at NaNoWriMo this year!

NaNoWriMo is when you try to write an entire 50,000 word novel during the month of November. The first time I tried was my junior year of high school. Life lesson: it's inadvisable during your junior year of high school to try to do anything but your junior year of high school. Or else you'll cry every night because of all the AP classes and SATs and PSATs and ACTs and other various acronym-related things that you have to do alongside whatever else it is you're trying to add to your load.

I'm speaking from experience.

The second time I tried was November 2015, and the third time was last November. Both times I knew I would never be able to write a full-length novel, so I just tried to write something five days a week. It was a good time, but I never got past 13,000 or so words.

Following last year's NaNoWriMo, I set a New Year's resolution to work on something for publication every week. First I tried to finish my novel from November. Then I tried to start a new story. Both times, I ran into a similar problem: I had some time to write, but I had hardly any time to plot. I could plot or write but not both.

So in May, I hit the restart button. I began a new project that didn't require me to do much plotting. Over five months, I eked out 18,000 words.

I decided that this year, my NaNoWriMo goal would be to finish the project. Well, good news! I've written about 12,000 more words in just under two weeks! Yay! Go team! I hope I can keep it up, because I'd love to have a completed novel on my hands.