Well, it’s been six days since the literary mayhem of NaNoWriMo concluded, and I’m coming here to say that I’m a little frustrated with myself, because since that day, I’ve not written a word.

Some may say, but you worked so hard during November! You needed a break! It’s okay. Well yeah, to some extent, I can understand that argument. But if there’s one thing that NaNoWriMo reminds us of, is that momentum is important. And right now, I feel as though I’ve shot myself in the foot a little by slowing down and not getting anything done this past week.

That changes today.

November really was the most magical month for my writing. I’ve never felt so incredibly inspired and motivated to keep at it, and I feel that was largely due to the rewarding aspect of taking on both the roles of a Municipal Liaison and a NaNoWordSprints leader. Both positions allowed me to be the source of encouragement for others, and when you’re constantly reminding others of how remarkable they are, how great their word counts were (no matter their size) or that they are a rockstar for simply giving their all to try – it becomes a feedback loop. Others being inspired by me reminded me that I have it in me to inspire myself, and be inspired by those who are being inspired by me and JUST GOSH THERE’S SO MUCH INSPIRATION I COULD CRY.

Another enormous contributing factor to me finishing this year would be the story I’m working on. As I’ve detailed in past posts, the novel I am working on right now is one that’s been in my head for eleven years, so it basically is the epitome of an idea feeling like my baby. I came up with it at age 13 when I barely knew what I was doing and the story has grown with me, always being in the back corners of my mind as I learned how to tell stories in film school, and now it’s finally coming to the forefront. This month’s NaNo is officially THE LONGEST single piece I’ve ever written, at 62,000 words . . . and I’ve still got a bit less than half way to go. It’s so exciting and exhilarating to see this story at last coming to fruition, and to have it happen in a month in which so many other good things were happening was just icing on the NaNoWriMo 2k15 cake.

What lies ahead is territory that is completely unknown and uncharted. When I finish, I will begin the process of rewriting and editing and rehashing with the hopes to get a draft of it into the hands of an agent sometime within the next year. As I said, momentum is important, and I do not want to lose the tremendous amount of it I’ve built up over the last year, in particular, the last six months.

If you were to put together the draft I did from July to October (my Camp NaNoWriMo draft) which was 44K and my new 62K one I wrote in the last month for NaNoWriMo proper, that’s over 100,000 words in the last six months.

That’s more than I’ve written probably in the last several years combined, so needless to say, I am pretty proud of that accomplishment. But while it is certainly a majestic milestone, it is not the end. There’s a long, long road ahead, and if I want to see through to the end of it, I cannot stop now.

So here’s to the rest of the road, and to getting to the end of this draft before the clock strikes 2016. I’ve got 26 days to do it. Let’s freaking go . . .