No, you’re not done! You’re a writer. There is no done. There is simply the next chapter, next rewrite, next story.
Nanowrimo is fantastic because it gives you a goal and sets up a community to help cheer you on and keep you accountable. This helps with developing the writing habit. You get into the mindset that you must write every day and after Nano’s done, you’re already in the habit and can continue it.
Or can you?
Nano is a marathon and you’re in great shape afterwards but, as I’m sure you discovered during the last month, it’s a hard pace to keep up. There’s a reason you needed the community. But you are in better habits than you were before Nano, you did write every day or damn close to it, and you know that you can do it.
Now is the time to finish up your novel if you didn’t get it all wrapped up during Nano even if you met the word goal *raises hand*. And if you want to finish it, you’re going to have to keep going. Maybe not at the pace you were during November, but somewhere close.
So this is my own little pep talk. For you and myself.
Keep going!
Hey, I didn’t say it was a long pep talk. Oh alright, I’ll give you a bit more.
Write every day. Keep working on your novel. If it’s done, start editing. Considering how fast you wrote during Nano and the fact that you weren’t allowed to backspace (well, you weren’t supposed to *guilty grin*), you may have to do some serious rewriting, even toss entire scenes. You can only do this if you park your butt in a chair and edit with the same enthusiasm that you wrote with.
I’ll be writing stuff on the editing process as I go, but that’s after I get my book actually done.
And on that note, I’m going to get my butt back to work. So get off that couch! Metaphorically speaking, I mean. Sit wherever you’re comfortable writing.
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