November is just over halfway through and with it NaNoWriMo begins to wind down. With under ten days until the end of the challenge, I wonder where many writers are finding themselves. As for myself, at over the halfway point, I am still very much at the beginning of my story.
I started out the first three days of November managing to write in small moments and had accumulated just over 5,000 words. I wasn’t able to find time after that until my peer critique night where I spent my precious 25 minutes of critique time to write and in that small time plus an hour before I was able to add close to 3,000 words to the draft. This past weekend I met some of my writing group out and was able to get another 4,200 words written. When one of them asked how I was pumping out so many words in our brief writing sprint, my answer came out so quickly and honestly I had barely a moment to register the answer myself before I said: I’m writing like my life depends on it. It’s what it felt like and honestly it was what I needed. It is true that the writer in me took those hours as a moment to breathe life into my characters and story that I’m currently working on. It is much more true that the writer in me needed those hours to breathe life into writing, to let the author within me out onto the page to play with words and story. I love what is happening in this chapter in my life, but I’d be lying if I didn’t also say that I miss the time to be in my stories. I would also be lying if I didn’t say that this phase of my life that I’m in now, all of the growing and getting back to my roots, isn’t already inherently changing who I am as a writer, and I can already see the way it’s going to enhance this next version of me.
What I know now from several different writing sessions over these past few months, from being the me that I was so long ago again in this next phase of my life, is that the writing doesn’t go away. My stories are in the very tips of my fingertips and when I can sit down to let it out into the keyboard, the words practically fall onto the page. That doesn’t mean that the writing I’m producing now is any different than before in that it will still need lots of revising and editing. What it does mean is that the writing is still there. It’s still just as willing to wait for me and just as ready to work when I am. It’s a silly thing to remind myself that it doesn’t go away, but sometimes when we enter these new phases, we have to prove to ourselves that the things we need from before are still there. I needed the reminder and I’m glad to have received it a few times this month. MS:TBS stands at just under 13,000 words. Do I think I will reach 50,000 words by the end of November? No, probably not. But, do I know that when I’m ready to write, my story and my words will be ready and waiting for me when I can? Without a shadow of a doubt, yes, and that is what I really need to win. Wherever you are in your writing journey this month, I hope you are finding your wins and getting your words onto the page.
In case you haven’t been told today, you are more than enough.
With you in words, Nikole
Nikole Breault 
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