Done but not finished

Well Nanowrimo is officially over for 2010! We had a very busy month and were gone for about two weeks to Texas to visit the Coles! It was a fabulous visit and we did manage to have writing time quite often. Unfortunately, I did not realize just how much the trip would take out of me  I fully intended to write whenever I wasn't driving, but ended up needing to sleep and conserve energy so that I could take my turn driving.

We got home on the 28th after not sleeping for more than an  hour at a time and crashed. This left me with part of Monday and Tuesday to try to complete the work. Monday I wrote only about 5500 words. I blame "jet lag". I was incredibly discouraged but more determined than ever to put in everything I had left on Tuesday to complete it. I feel like I accomplished a personal miracle for me by writing 16,000 words on Tuesday! I still am not sure where the words came from, but they just kept flowing and I was grateful. I was barely able to keep my eyes open, but I wrote until exactly 12:00 a.m. and did a word count. I finished the race short at only 40,554 words.

Disappointed? Yes. Encouraged? Yes. Wednesday was a day of contemplation on my mistakes and successes along the way. I realized that in choosing to write, I was setting in motion a long awaited childhood dream. I has waited patiently in the creative shadows of my mind waiting for the opportunity to be unleashed. I now feel like I have given myself the permission I never needed but always used as an excuse to not write, because I didn't have it.

I realized that writing is like anything else. In order to do it on a regular basis, I have to schedule it in like I would my work, chores, callings, family time, parties and anything else that takes importance. It all comes down to time management. I can choose how to spend my time and that re-realization excites me because I know that I will always make time for it now.

So there you have it. I am continuing to work on my novel until I hit the 50,000 word mark just to be able to say I did it. I will continue to mold it and morph it into a beautiful piece of work that has a little bit of me woven into the fibers of the story. I am excited to hear about all of your successes. I count myself blessed to have the opportunity to continue to learn new things about myself and the world around me daily. I always like to think that it hasn't been a good day unless I have learned something new.

Today is a good day.