Four days ago, on November 24, 2016, I passed 50k words for my NaNoWriMo 2016 novel and officially “won” this year. My final word count was 50,002 words. I felt like the story that I wanted to tell reached its conclusion, so stopping after reaching 50k felt right.
I was able to write 24 days consecutively, mostly writing first thing in the morning. Some days I wrote in the evening when I had to focus on other projects in the morning.
Here are some statistics from the project:
- It took me 24 days to reach the goal.
- My average word count was 2,083 words per day.
- My best day writing was on Sunday, November 6 with 3,347 words written.
- I spent 42 hours total writing, averaging 1.75 hours per day.
- The page count came to 246 pages.
I am going to let the novel sit until January, when I plan on revising and editing it. From there I will most likely self-publish it digitally and maybe make some print copies.
In the days since finishing the first draft, I have continued to write. Right now I am working on writing a script for a short film idea that I had, as well as experimenting with an interactive fiction story built with Twine.
I am very happy that I participated in NaNoWriMo and reached the goal. From the first day of writing to the last, I truly felt like I was doing something I enjoyed. I am looking forward to writing future drafts of the novel and attempting NaNoWriMo next year.