I achieved my goals: 1. I passed 50k, and 2. I enjoyed doing it.
That's it. Those were my goals.
I hadn't enjoyed writing at all since M died, so 'fun' was just as important to me this year as the standard 50k mark. I used to love writing and wanted to recapture that wonder of seeing the story come together. I would say I did that. Enough to make it to the 50,000-word mark by Day 24, and to finish out with 52,086 words.
The story turned out rather good. I think it came out differently than I expected, but I'm happy with the result. It's definitely good enough to revise and publish, but that day is a long, long way off. First Kyrie, and honestly IF that ever happens the next one in line is probably my 2016 novel Father's Delight. Then probably this one.
I was honestly scared I would never enjoy writing again. Having realised now that I still can brings both joy and sadness. Joy because my ability to escape into my art is not lost forever, but sadness because I'm not doing it with someone, and because it's different now. My autistic brain has yet to accept that 'different' doesn't mean 'bad' (it has the double whammy of having to process this concept in relation to Christmas too, and that's going about as well as this is).
I would still like to do NaNoWriMo next year. I don't think this is the last hurrah. But now I need to convince my brain to come up with more plots (this year's plot was inspired by a post on the NaNoWriMo 'plot bunnies' forum ages ago, and yes, I will try to credit the person should this actually ever get published.)
