Where did November go!? The last I checked it was November 15, and now suddenly it’s December 2 and National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has been over for two days. Let’s recap and see how my NaNoWriMo went.

Back on November 1, I outlined my goals and deadlines for NaNoWriMo 2018, but made it clear that success to me this year was anything more than 0. So how did I do in hitting my goals and deadlines? Well… I did more than 0. Jessica for the win!

On November 15, I described which of my first half of November goals I had hit and which ones I had not, and since then I haven’t put in the work to reach my second half of November goals.

My deadlines for NaNoWriMo 2018 with completed goals in bold:

1. Read over all of my notes for my novel and organize my planning – November 4. [Hit on November 12]
2. Write down all of my beginning notes for my novel – November 7. [Hit on November 4]
3. Re-read short story and plan for editing – November 15.
4. First NaNoWriMo update blog article midway through the month – November 16. [Hit on November 15]
5. Write all of my character studies for my novel – November 17.
6. Write all of my plot outlines for my novel – November 25.
7. Edit and prepare to publish short story – November 30.
8. Finalize all of my novel planning – November 30.
9. Second NaNoWriMo update blog article at the end of the month – December 1. [Hit on December 2]

A writer’s worst enemy is their own procrastination and not prioritizing their writing, and the beauty of NaNoWriMo is that it provides an incentive to stop procrastinating and to prioritize writing. Prioritizing writing, however, especially for someone who does not get paid to write, isn’t always an option. NaNoWriMo simply wan’t a priority for me this year, and so out of my nine deadlines, I only hit four of them – and only two were related to my main goal of fully planning out my novel.

In order for me to move forward from here, I need to keep my stress level at a low, because I made a choice to prioritize something else this November and I shouldn’t beat myself up for that. Instead, I will continue on with my novel planning through December, so that I can eventually begin writing. Because in all honesty, more than 0 is better than 0.