nanowrimo

Last year Aiden’s fifth grade class wrote a novel in one month for National Novel Writing Month. This sparked a writing bug in Aiden and he’s written tons of stories since then, some collaborations with his friends and some shared for editing back and forth with his good buddies. Aiden and I talked about doing NaNoWriMo together, but he was pretty tuckered our after Rags and busy with school and Shrek rehearsals, etc etc 

But I still had this idea brewing for a book about Mary Washington, George’s scrappy single mother who has had many varying interpretations by biographers. I think of it as a historical parenting/self help book where I speculate based on some historical facts what advice Mary would give on a variety of topics like resilience and gratitude. When I first started I was pretty sure at day two and three there was no way I’d meet the 50,000 word goal. But then the roughly 1,600 words a day goal became a reality and I just kept with it through a very busy month... 

Here is November by the numbers:

 5 days off from school for the boys
 4 days with husband out of town
 3 days with sick husband
 4 days being sick myself
 3 Rags musical performances/meetings
 8 shifts at the school book fair checkout
 Over 1,000 photos taken for the school play
 Over 2,000 photos edited
 1 Piano recital prepped and attended
1 Chat n Chew book club read
 2 knitting groups hosted
 2 sleeves and a quarter body stitched on J’s complicated sweater
 1 turkey dinner prepped and roasted
 Countless walks and cuddles with the puppy
 50,006 words written! 91 pages single spaced!

Now I need a National editing month ;) But the boys were excited for me and we celebrated with Boston cream pie just like we did for Aiden last year! A friend asked me what do I get as a winner? I did earn a pin (one of my favorite things!), but mostly just a sense of satisfaction.