That's a Wrap! NaNoWriMo 2014

That's a wrap! For all of you super writers that managed to get through this past month of cramming work and school and writing together all while chugging endless cups of coffee and staying up through all hours of the night, I applaud you. I experienced it myself (and won for the second year in a row), and I will openly admit that NaNoWriMo is not easy.

If you did pass the 50K finish line by today, I applaud you. Way to go! I know that this is a book blog, not a writing blog, but NaNoWriMo is an important part of my life and I feel like I need to get on here and congratulate everyone for a job well done. Since you hit the 50K, you know what the cramming was like. You probably even spent time staring at the clock, willing it to go back a few hours so you had more time to write. You definitely stared at the screen time and time again, willing the writer's block away and praying that words will flow from your fingertips.

It's a tough road to travel. BUT YOU DID IT! So did I. Even though my stress levels quadruple around NaNoWriMo season, I'm so glad (and so pumped) to do this year after year. As an author myself, writing stories is my passion and it's what I want to do for the rest of my life. NaNoWriMo provided that extra push for me to get a head start on my next novel and get myself out there. It's an absolutely wonderful program that I recommend to anyone with even the tiniest seed of writing passion in their hearts. Take it and run with it. You can do it. You DID do it. Now, celebrate by napping until Christmas Eve and then waking up and eating ALL THE FOOD. And whatever you do, do NOT touch your writing. Let it rest. The editing won't take place until 2015.

If you didn't pass the 50K finish line by today, don't give up! Even if you aren't marked as a "Winner" of NaNoWriMo 2014 (as in, writing 50K words or more by the end of November), you are certainly not a loser. Look at what you've written already, whether it's 200 words or 28,000 words. Maybe you even write 49,999. Who cares? You're still miles and miles ahead of the writers sitting around not starting their stories at all. Just because NaNoWriMo is over doesn't mean that your storywriting career is. In the real world of publishing, you're given much longer than a month to write your book. So sit back and think of all that you've accomplished this November, and don't forget to remind yourself that you're still leaps and bounds ahead of the writers hanging around dragging their feet. So congratulations!

Reflecting on NaNoWriMo as a whole, I'm definitely glad I made the decision to type instead of hand-write my story this year. (Last year was the epitome of a disaster, and that's all I have to say about it.) It only took me about an hour and a half each night to write my 2,000 words a day, which is a surprisingly small amount of time for that many words to be written. I'm satisfied with the way my story came out and I can't wait to start the editing process (and I know I'm going to regret saying that come January) and get this book on the road to being published!

So if you did NaNoWriMo this year and won, I applaud you. If you did NaNoWriMo this year and didn't win, I still applaud you. If you didn't do NaNoWriMo at all this year but you definitely want to do it next year - congratulations! I welcome you to one of the greatest writing programs in the world. :-)

So, did you do NaNoWriMo this year? Why or why not? What are your wrap up thoughts about this year's NaNoWriMo? Comment and tell me down below!

Sincerely, your exhausted Wrimo,