Reread the completed Thunder Road and Tombstone Blues novels and make some notes before diving back into Book 3.But on the plus side, I may already have next year’s project kicking around in my brain.

I almost made the same mistake I did in 2009, which was getting distracted by a shiny new idea shortly before NaNoWriMo, but I held firm to what I planned to write this year. I even had a near 7000 word Saturday while trying to catch up ( I paid for it the next day) which I haven’t done in a long time. I did notice a shift towards the middle of the month when I was back to work where I was getting closer to my old word count goal of 2000 a day, even if those words were broken up in three tightly focused shorter sprints rather than one long sitting. Not a lot of words, mind you, but enough that I was able to catch up again on my return. Having a book tour in the middle of the month and a week away from home hurt my word count for sure, but I managed some words in airports, and while I was a guest in Edmonton and Saskatoon. I probably averaged around 1000 words most weekdays, and tried to make up for it on the weekends (which I usually didn’t). I didn’t have steady, big word count days. The real win will be when I actually take the scattered mess, rewrite it and hone it and send it out, but this time it feels like that will be easier than my 2009 project (which I’m still revising) or my 2011 project (which I’m still writing). It needs about 25000-30000 more words to finish or flesh out existing scenes, and to create the scenes I didn’t get around to writing. And I do know it’s not really a book yet.

I don’t know if that’s because I’ve had this idea for the last two years, and kept meaning to get to it (2009’s idea showed up three days before November and quickly dissolved into a morrass of nonsense), but was worried I was talking about it more than I was writing it or because I managed to type the words without actually re-aggrivating my tennis elbow and pinched nerve (which was 2011’s problem). It’s hard to tell how the book turned out, as I haven’t sat down to read any of those November words yet, but I feel like this was my most successful NaNoWriMo of the three I’ve participated in. It feels like a long time since I’ve had steady, big word count days, and I’m hoping this will kickstart my routine back into shape. NaNoWriMo: I decided what I’m going to write and I’m going to put words on the page dammit.So November has come and gone, and it’s taken the frenzy of National Novel Writing Month with it.

Wild fell michael rowe