NaNoWriMo: a winner is me

I wrote 50,000 words in 30 days (actually within 24 days). I wasn't doing too well with writing on week days, so I decided to use this holiday weekend for a marathon novel finish. My final count when I stopped to check around 2:25 this afternoon was 50,100 words.

Here's a fun graph that shows my total word count creeping up towards the 50k goal. The blue line represents the minimum average words/day needed to reach that goal by November 30. The red line is where I would be if I stayed on track with exactly 2,000 words per day. I finished precisely one day ahead of schedule.

The next graph charts my daily word count. I was all over the place! This is why it's a good idea to aim high. Even though I completely missed a couple of days, I had built up enough of a buffer that I never fell below that minimum line.

This was my fourth year doing NaNoWriMo. It is always kind of tedious most of the time, with brief flashes of inspiration, and a great feeling of accomplishment at the end. This was my most solid effort to date. I wasn't done telling the story when I hit the finish line, so I still have to write the finale of my novel, and maybe one day I'll even edit this one into a legible first draft. Until then, please enjoy the photo journal (click to see all posts for the month of November and read from the bottom up for a visual approximation of my story).