Word count today: 0

Total word count: 50,072

I fully expected to be writing furiously tonight; I was hoping I'd be done by about now (it's just a little shy of 11 PM), so's I wouldn't get too nervous about making the 50,000 word deadline by the time competition ends at midnight. It's a little like running a marathon and then standing by the finish line to watch the other runnners come across (except my feet don't hurt and I haven't had any Gatorade). It actually feels a little weird not to be writing (except for the entries on two blogs I've been working on for the past two hours...oh, never mind).

NaNoWriMo '07 is over--and so is this blog (new entries, anyway). I have no idea if I'll do this again next year; if I do, I'll blog about it here. In the meantime, this blog will stand as a silent witness to my complete loss of sanity in getting involved in this.

My wife's asked me a few times if I'd stop at 50,000 words or keep going. I stopped, because I got to the end of the story. I definitely could dive back in there and flesh out elements of the story to arrive at something of a more substantial novelly length (100-200K). At least for the time being I don't plan to do that. I've got a couple ideas for non-fiction books that I think people might actually want to read, so if I do anything, it'll probably be that.

About once a week, the National Novel Writing Month organizers sent out an email pep talk from an actual working writer (a couple I've even heard of, like Sue Grafton). I also ran across a piece on NPR's website in which they asked a bunch of writers about their process, writer's block, etc., in a piece they did for NaNoWriMo '06. In no particular order, here are the things I've learned this month, both from my own experience and from those authors:

1. Write about things that interest and motivate you. Don't just "write what you know." Write what you love.
2. Don't try to sell the story first; get it written and then decide what you're going to do with it.
3. Don't get hung up on the intended audience; whether it gets read by millions or just by Aunt Millie is secondary to whether you get it down on paper.
4. Write every day; if you feel blocked, uninspired, or unmotivated, do it anyway.
5. At most, do some proofreading and light editing as you move through the book. Forward momentum is critical, and tearing your book apart as you're putting it together is counter-productive.
6. Don't tell other people (in great detail) about what you're writing; save it for the book.
7. Don't show your book to friends and family or solicit feedback while you're writing it.
8. Having 50 pages of bad writing to revise is far better than having zero pages of brilliant, perfect, could-not-possibly-be-improved-upon nothing.