Winning at NaNoWriMo

November 2015 has been torn off and tossed into recycling, leaving behind the rushed pages of a new novel, a yearning for even more coffee, and the satisfaction of having conquered my second NaNoWriMo challenge. It was a smooth ride up until the very last day.  I think I lulled myself into a false sense of complacency, leaving the final 3000 words for my last day. "I'll take the day off, finish up the challenge, and still have time for laundry and video games." Then I stood there with my hands on my hips and faced into the gusty wind like a triumphant hero should.

Then the migraine hit.  I wasn't worried at first.  I often wake up fuzzy-headed but like Quinn said of the sharks in Jaws, "Sometimes they go away, sometimes they don't go away." Well, this one turned out to be a predator and it was bent on biting the legs off my novel just before the finish line.  I scraped together a few hundred words during the day, took groggy, lurching breaks to throw in the damn laundry and let the roofers in the finish insulating a skylight they removed...a month ago. No video games.  Couldn't keep my head up for that.  But by evening the Migraine Shark got bored with my antics and I was able to finish and send it in for validation.  Only afterwards did I realize I had moved around two scenes twice meaning I had double scenes.  Got rid of those then banged out another 1000 words in an hour to FINALLY validate a correct chunk of novel.  Don't know if it mattered to anyone else, but getting it right mattered to me, even if I screwed something up.

My novel, however, is not finished.  I've got about10-15 more scenes, maybe another 100 pages to go before I rip into it with my editorial weed whacker.  I actually enjoy rewriting though.  I'm setting my next goal at finishing the first draft by Christmas then the re-write by my birthday on Jan 27.  The 28th will see me sending it out.  Here's hoping.  Write on.