I've done my morning sprints and will be spending most of the day at the hospital with my husband again, so I'm calling NaNoWriMo a wrap for myself.

I didn't end up with a single draft ready to go straight into editing as I'd intended, but I'm happy. I wrote every day -- even during the nightmare days when I was sitting in the ICU, terrified I was losing my husband. (He is now recovering nicely. The doctors found the issue and fixed it in the nick of time.) My word counts were, understandably, much lower those days, but more than anything, it proved to me that when I'm determined to do so, I can keep writing somewhere on my list of priorities under even the most daunting circumstances.

For 30 days, writing was just fun again. I think I need that each year. I struggle so much with the rest of the process over the other 11 months that I often forget to have fun with it. This wasmy second year with the strategy of just plowing through plot and writing every idea that pops into my head, allowing myself to suck and just not worry about it, and I think I'll make it a bonafide tradition.

More importantly, I have plenty of plot to work with over the next 11 months. Once the decisions have been made and everything is polished, I'll probably have 2-3 books and seeds for furthering the series. The trick will be finding my groove in making that happen.

And obviously, I'm happy with my word count. I didn't set out to do it, but constant sprinting with writing buddies meant I beat last years record of 329,409 with a word count of 332,983.

So... how did everyone do? What was good, what was bad, what was surprising, and what was downright ugly? Post your word counts, and let us know! (And for those still writing, good luck!)

I'm glad your husband is recovering well.And congratulations for doing so well in the 18k challenge! Be sure to let me know what little sculpey creation you'd like me to makefor you in addition to the button.

I am sadly losing steam (and Molly has zoomed far ahead of me) but I have mostly accomplished what I set out to do. Most of the important stories have been written. Lots of editing ahead.

I've crossed the 50K word mark, but my story is far from finished! In fact, as I wrote toward 50K last night, I was only just finishing act one, according to my outline! (Guess who's bad at pacing? This gal!)

I plan to keep on writing and following my outline to complete the story. Then I want to commit to editing this beast and getting it in shape. I already know the POV needs to change in many of the scenes (alas...the mistakes we make in the heat of NaNo). Overall, it's been a great month because it got me writing again.

Glad to hear your husband is better.

I'm wrapping at roughly 54,000, with only one major scene left to write. Sadly I have fallen 4,000 short of the 18k challenge, but hey that means that I wrote 14,000 words in 6 days, which is nothing to sneeze at for me.

It was mostly fun except when my carpel tunnel flared up and I couldn't feel my hands. Not fun to type like that.