I ended up short of the mark for my first attempt at National Novel Writing Month. At 41,000 words, I was short 9,000 words. Even if I added (sneakily) the 4,000 words of the short story that distracted me, I would not make the required 50,000 words. I did, however, learn a few things from the experience.
1. Writing a lot everyday can become a habit, if you support it by arranging your life around that creative time.
2. Outlines and notes help you to produce a lot of words, and counting lots of words can really feed your ego.
3. Writing fast sometimes means writing badly.
I found that last point hard to deal with. I was spending a lot of time re-writing instead of forging on. It may be that NaNoWriMo doesn’t suit my writing style, but I think I can take some positive things from the experience.