NaNoWriMo -- Finished (Almost)

I topped the 50,000-word goal on the last day of  National Novel Writing Month.

I wrote  50,241 words over the 30-day marathon. It feels good to reach that level. My average was 1,674 words a day.

While I was able to produce more than 50k words, I'm still working on a first draft. This manuscript is probably two-thirds of the way finished, but it's a good start.

There's still a lot of work to be done to fill in holes, develop characters, and stay focused on the overall story.

Then comes the hard part of writing -- the rewrite. It's almost like starting over, except that I'm not working with blank pages. It's the long process to polish sentences, further develop characters, show rather than tell, improve dialogue, and much more.

I'll be posting more about that process after I finish the first draft.

As for the work-in-progress, in case you're wondering, it will fall under the boomer-lit category. More about that later.

But, for the moment, I'm glad that I've reached the NaNoWriMo summit even though I have higher mountains to climb. 

Until the next time...