As always, I’d like to begin this week’s progress report by thanking all of you awesome people who’ve followed, liked and/or commented on my blog!

Here are this week’s stats:

Words Written This Week: 8,428

Words Written So Far: 50,021

Last Chapter of Rough Draft Completed: Epilogue

Chapters To Go (subject to change): None, I’M FINISHED

Days Until November 30th Goal Date: 1

Thoughts?

On the afternoon of November 25th, I surpassed my NaNoWriMo 50k word goal and completed the first draft of my third book, the second book in the Sweetshade series. As you can see from the final word count above, it’s a bit shorter than Blind Faith. I’d much prefer it to be closer/surpass 60k, but for now, that’s a fine first draft length.

Last Friday, I really started hitting a wall, both mentally and physically. I was sleepy-tired from about 2 pm on, which isn’t normal for me. I work second shift at my day job and I can usually hold off on the yawns until about 8 pm. I was so tired on Friday and then driving home, I felt an anxiety attack trying to swim up on me. Needless to say, I believe that getting up early and spending 2+ hours writing at my home computer everyday for three weeks, then going into my day job and spending another 8 hours working on the computer, was exhausting my eyes and my mind. After work on Saturday, I made the decision to not write and instead, take a long bath and relax.

As you can see, I came back on Sunday and Monday with a vengeance and completed NaNoWriMo early, which I’m quite proud of.

That said, I think for next year – whether I only write for November’s NaNoWriMo or I chose to participate in April or July’s Camp NaNo as well – I need to back off of getting up so early. It’s nice getting up, getting writing done, and still having some time to spare before I go to the day job. But it’s not worth my sanity or health/rest.

Goals For The Coming Week

I’ve already made sure that Monday’s newsletter is finalized, as well as next week’s complimenting blog post (I may or may not be revealing a first chapter preview of Blind Faith). As I’ve mentioned before, I work in online retail and we’re now officially in peak season. So, while I plan to continue reading, I have no set goals. I’ve exceeded my 25-book goal already. I’ve completed my first draft. From here on out, I can just relax.

Note To Self

You did it and you learned some valuable lessons along the way. Be proud!