If you crossed the 50K mark, you are a winner by anyone's yardstick! Well done. Some of you may be in this boat and are thinking, "What next?" Throughout this blog I will give you some tips on the next steps of your process. Stay tuned.
If you fall in the group of writers who started with high hopes, but didn't make it over the finish line, never fear, you tried, and whether you have 2K words or 20K or more, you have more words now than you had on October 31. You did what you could. Well done.
The Next Step
If you haven't finished your story (whether you passed the 50K mark or not) the next step is completing this draft. Conclude the story. Resist the urge to edit or revise your work at this point in your writing. As most writers will tell you, starting something is a lot easier than completion. Many writers have oodles of unfinished drafts. An unfinished draft won't go anywhere. Take what you learned about writing during the last month and keep on going.
For those who needed 50K to complete a novel--you arrived at the end of your story in 50K--the next step is to pat yourself on the back and put your work aside for a little while. Yes! You get a vacation--at least from this story. My suggestion is to start another project, short story, another novel, poem, or whatever your muse is urging you to write. You created some writing habits during Nano that you can now carry over into your writing life.
Whereever you find yourself at the beginning of December, good luck with your NEXT STEP.