How did Nanowrimo Go?

If you remember, I set out to participate in Nanowrimo again this year for the first time in ages. Needless to say, I wasn't sure how it was going to work. After all, I hadn't found time to write much of anything this whole year. How was I going to do it during one of the busiest months?
But I had this story idea about a Cinderella re-telling in my head and it needed to get out. So, I signed up. Maybe just saying I was going to do Nanowrimo would make it happen.
And of course I upped the word count I wanted to achieve in 30 days, because I'm insane. But it's okay. Because you see that picture up above? It's part of the screen you get when you "win" Nanowrimo. I saw that screen on November 22nd. That's right. I hit 50,000 words 8 days before I had to.

I can honestly say this Nanowrimo has been like no others. For one, I actually got to attend a couple of write-ins at the local library. That was fun. There's no talking, of course. You bring whatever you're going to write on/in, and you write for an hour. That's it. But everyone around you is also writing, so it's encouraging and forces you to actually do what you're supposed to be doing. Ha!
I also helped encourage several other authors participating in Nanowrimo this year. That was fun too. Asking them each day what their word count totals were helped keep me accountable on the days I didn't feel like writing. I will grant you that a few days I wrote only a few hundred words, but I wrote. That's the point of Nanowrimo. To get in the habit of writing every day.
And this year, I surprised myself a bit. I found I could knock out a chapter in less than two hours. Sometimes, in less than an hour and a half. And my chapters run 9-10 pages, which averages about 2,200-2,500 words for me. I write a lot of dialog! Anyway, it's encouraging to me to know I CAN do that, even in the midst of the chaos of life and holidays and all the other things. Because it means I can do that at times when it's not Nanowrimo too. I can take part of my life back a little bit and get more knocked out next year, hopefully. It's a dream, anyway.
So, how did Nanowrimo go?
Well, today is the last day. I'm *almost* finished with my story as I write this blog post. I'll definitely finish tonight, whether I attend the last write-in or not. And I'm probably going to pass 70,000 words with this manuscript, which is 5,000 more than I had originally aimed for.
Is my story perfect? No way. But is it good? I think so. I'll finish it tonight, let it rest for a few weeks, polish it up, and then we'll see what we can do about getting it published. How's that sound?
Did you participate in Nanowrimo this year or in the past? How did you do? Have you tackled any other goals that you weren't sure were achievable and then surpassed them?

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