Tooting my own horn

Ok, now that I've somewhat recovered, I can relate to you, loyal prez2012 readers, how it is that I was able to finish my 50,011 word novel in 30 days.

If you click on the image to the left, you can see the bulk of it was done in the final 3 days; more specifically, the final 2 days. True to form, I waited until the last minute (or, more precisely, the last 2,880 minutes), pounding out an astounding 25,000 words, fully half of the novel, in the final 2 days.

The morning of Tuesday, the 29th, I had 25,000 words. With the midnight deadline on the 30th looming, I stayed up all night. Didn't sleep a wink. I downed a highly caffeinated energy drink around 2 in the morning to keep me going. By the time the morning of the 30th rolled around and I was ready to leave for school, I had hit the 40,000 word mark. In the 30 minutes before school, I produced another thousand. After school, another thousand. I was at the 42,000 word mark, and the end was in sight. Then off to coach the 6th grade girls basketball team. Home by 5:30. I had 6 and a half hours to get out 8,000 words. My average had been between 1,000 and 2,000 words an hour, so I figured I could just make it.

Throwing any semblance of editing to the wind, my brain, which by then had been awake for about 36 hours straight, didn't let me down and continued to send words for my hands and fingers to add to the total. By 10:00, I could barely think straight. My head kept lolling to one side, I was making huge amounts of typos, spending nearly half my time hitting the delete key to correct them, and I was getting a strange tingling in my fingers and wrist.

The novel's plot line came to a surprising, rather unrealistic standoff between 1,000 gang members in the middle of a forest, all heavily armed from a huge cache of guns that had been supplied to them by the novel's hero, Roger Canfield. They stare at each other, and without saying a word, all drop their weapons, and walk away.

It might not have ended that way had I not hit the 50,000 word mark and wanted to just put it (the novel) and me to sleep.

Collapsing into bed, I actually couldn't sleep for about 20 minutes. My mind was racing. My heart, rather than the usual steady BUMP-bump-BUMP-bump-BUMP-bump was doing something more like BUM-pa-pa-pa-RUM-bum-BUMP which, under normal circumstances, might have been extremely alarming. But, too tired to care, I fell off to sleep and somehow still awoke the next day, declaring to my students when I arrived that I had finished my novel and they gave me a big round of spontaneous applause.

Now that it's over, I feel that it was a very rewarding experience. I have written a novel before the age of 30, something that I've always wanted to do. But at the time, it felt like torture. I survived report cards and all the assessments that go with them, 51 parent-teacher conferences, a nasty lingering cold, coaching my street hockey team (and, on two occasions, the other hockey team because the coach couldn't make their games), fundraising every day to raise money for Outdoor Ed, coaching both the 6th grade boys and girls basketball teams, and writing a 50,000 word novel, all in one horrible, horrible month. So yeah, I'm proud of myself.

I want to appreciate Pam for pushing me, encouraging me, never giving up on me. And Mark, your phone calls and text messages near the end were a helpful boost, too. Thanks also to those that gave their plot ideas and just generally sent positive energy my way.

Parts of the novel will likely be posted here soon. There's a lot of stuff that I want to cut out, and other things I would now like to add or enhance.

But you'll have to wait at least a week - I'm going to Outdoor Ed starting tomorrow.

You can see my full official NaNoWriMo profile here.