In April, after having finished the first round of edits in my first book, I had asked myself what I would be able to write if I did not need to spend 12hrs a day, 4 days a week at a full time job. And this month I answered that question. I still had full time school, and other life commitments, but I managed to write every day and I have since accomplished in 30 days what I can’t imagine ever accomplishing again. I officially have the first draft of my prequel book, and it is finished at 69, 544 words. That is over 2000 words longer than my first draft for book 1. And to think, I was originally only going to write it as a tiny novella!
I feel like the prequel will expand quite a bit still. I had to cut out some details from the last chapter in an effort to finish the book before the end of NaNo, but it officially has an ending written so I’m calling it done for now and I can go back and edit some more details come January. My last day of official classes is tomorrow (Monday) and then I will be on holidays until January 6th. I technically have 3 exams, but I won’t be stuck in a classroom every week, so I’m not counting those. I think I will take a couple days off, let me brain refresh itself and then I’m hoping to get back into book 1. The poor thing has been so neglected since the beginning of June when this adventure first started.
It bugs me that I only have ten chapters left to finish. My goal is to have them finished by the end of December. Even with Christmas, I’m sure I can do it! I’ll have a lot of people encouraging me, mainly my dad who has been patiently waiting to read the thing for oh, I don’t know, eleven months now hahaha. So to all my NaNo-ers, congratulations on your accomplishment this month! Even if you didn’t reach 50,000 words, every book has a beginning, and every chapter counts, so you are a winner in my books!
~Kat
Tempest in a Teacup 
Nice work! I didn’t “win”, but I’m still pretty happy with what I did. 69544 words is awesome!
Most people I talked to didn’t “win” their first NaNo, but I sacrificed a lot to get there, including my sanity some days and I even failed a french quiz… although I might have failed that quiz anyway 😛 43,438 words is quite impressive though! My first book took me over a month to write; it’s a pretty hefty task to do it in such a short time! My friend is also only about half way through her plot and plans to finish it in December 🙂