National Novel Writing Month has ended, and I did it! At the end of Nov. 30 I had tallied 52,505 words. I actually surpassed 50,000 words early on the morning of Nov. 29, just in time to sit down to a celebratory breakfast with my husband.

After congratulating me, he asked me a very important question, “What now?”

Before I participated in NaNoWriMo this year for the first time, I looked up some statistics about how many people finish. It was pretty daunting. According to WikiWroMo, in 2018 there were 295,396 participants and 35,410 winners. Only about 12% of writers finish. 

But I get his question, now that you’ve invested all that time what are you going to do with it?

Spoiler alert: When you “win” NaNoWriMo, there aren’t prizes except for a certificate and some discounts on writing-related products and services. Your prize is supposed to be having the first draft of a novel. In my research about NaNoWriMo, I found that some writers come to the end of the month and realize that what they have written doesn’t work and just isn’t worth pursuing. But those writers don’t look upon the 50,000 words as a waste of time; they agree it was worth it to hone the craft and dedicate oneself to discipline.

I see that there’s something worth doing with my 50,000 words, so for me the next step is to continue writing my novel. In 52,205 words, I only got through the first two acts of my three-act story arc. There’s much more story to tell and the first 12 chapters set up a great finish for the last third of the book. To be honest, Chapter 12 right now is more than 9,000 words so it’s a safe bet it will split in half in the rewrites.

I’m not going to try to keep up the blistering pace I had during NaNoWriMo, but I do want to keep going while the muse is on fire. I expect to finish my first draft before the end of the year. And after that?

On to revisions and the second draft!

But, following the advice of James Scott Bell, I’ll 1) Let it cool; 2) Get mentally prepared; 3) Read it through; 4) Brood over what you’ve done; 5) Write the second draft; 6) Refine; and 7) Polish.

So I’m almost done, right?