Upon Winning NaNoWriMo

The last 500 words were the hardest.

The book that I planned and plotted and poured my heart into over the previous 24 days was complete yet I was 500 word short of the 50,000 word goal needed to win NaNoWriMo.

It was my first time participating in the event. But it was the kick in the ass I needed, the kick in the ass I wanted, to motivate me to sit down every day and write a novel.

I looked for advice from the Twitterverse. I wrote a dedication. I wrote an author’s note. I looked for holes in my plot and tried to fill them in. Each painstaking step brought me closer but 500 words did not pour out of me. 500 words came. One. At. A. Time.

When I had 91 words to go and zero inspiration, I thought to myself … what is wrong with me?

Then I knew I didn’t really want it to be done. I was whole while I was creating and I didn’t want to fragment into pieces upon completion. I am a writer. Am I an editor? A salesperson? A marketer? Am I those things that I know I need to be to bring this story to the world?

I don’t know. I’ll find out. And to answer my own question … there is nothing wrong with me. There was a barrier in my way that I had to knock down. A barrier named Uncertainty.

And yeah … last night I took that sucker out. Today I begin discovering what is right with me.