I'm proud of...

The fact that I balanced being a senior in high school, college apps, my family and writing all at once--and somehow, they all made it out in (relatively) one piece and my 50k got finished anyway.

That I was able to write for the fun of it again.

That even though I know this is a first draft and that it sucks (thank you, O Internal Editor, but I knew that already), I'm not worried about what other people will think about it anymore. So I guess that I'm more confident?

Oh. And all my friends at Team Awesome: I'm so proud of you guys! 8D <3

I had an ending in mind when I started my novel, shining like a distant shore across a vast ocean of words. So, even when tide was against me and I was paddling against the wind, even when I thought I might have to jump out and swim to get the thing ashore, even if the whole mess looks like a shipwreck right now, I’m proud to say I found my way to the opposite shore and to the ending I imagined.

I’m proud that I challenged myself to post some excerpts and snippets of my writing, and in the process discovered a great writing community among the Naperwrimos.

And I never, ever thought I’d get THIS many words in a month!

Taking the time to actually finish the story I began last year rather than stopping when the wordometer hit a certain number.

Deciding to take the risks and try different styles even though I was unsure they might work. Books influence my writing, it's true, and I was able to take lessons from Meljean Brook, Greg Rucka, Brandon Sanderson, and Patricia Briggs at different points. They all have vastly differing voices and I hope I learned a bit.

Shutting up the internal editor when it screamed, 'You totally suck and your writing is not reflecting at all what you can do.' Draft 0.5, baby!

Helping other people to reach their goals, perhaps, and not forsaking the spirit of community or camaraderie when my competitive side sometimes rears its silly 8-year-old head. I've been so utterly inspired by how well everyone does, how dedicated they are, how beautiful and diverse their writing is.

Bouncing around and laughing at Team Awesome's silly posts. ;)

That I only wrote when the kids were busy with other stuff over the long weekend.

That I made a lot of write-ins at Caribou and kept the Google calendar and write-in page up to date.

That I've finished my first draft.

I'm proud that I decided to participate. Maybe that's a little odd, but this time last year I'd have laughed my head off if someone told me I'd be doing this--writing an average of 2000+ words every day, and actually getting my story out of my head and onto (virtual) paper, where it belongs.

Also, I'm proud that I managed to break 50K--I really didn't think I could do it!

XD

I'm proud that I've finally gotten a chance to write what I really love. I've been trying to conform to genre and society desires, but now I'm only focusing on what I love writing and the feeling is amazing.

As much as I worked on it in October, I couldn't really find my story. I had a plot, a vague outline, and even vaguer character descriptions. By the third day of November, I was second guessing my choice to write this story, but I kept with it. I kept pulling words painfully from my head and now it's starting to turn into something. That's what I'm proud of.

I'm proud that I finally got over my aversion to permanently disfiguring my characters. It sounds kind of morbid, I'm sure, but I never realized until this year how hard I worked to make my characters perfect, and how that translated to the way I pictured them in my head. After reading Megan Whalen Turner's "The Queen of Attolia" and watching her brutally chop off the hand of my favorite thief, and then later in the series watch her disfigure one of my other favorite characters, I think it just started to click in my head that it was okay for irreparable damage to be done to characters. As I'm ending out my story, I've made small steps towards throwing off my attachment to physical perfection in giving my favorite character such a badly broken nose that it will never heal nicely.

It's a little thing, but it's a beginning, and I'm very proud of that.

I'm proud to learn that I can write more than 20 pages a month and that I can make time to write every day if that's what I really want.

Before too much longer, I hope to be proud that I can finish an entire novel...But I'm not quite there yet.

I'm proud of defining who I am as a writer: a slow, methodical hack with an internal editor glued like a dimestore parrot to my shoulder.

I'm proud to know that I can write a short story in a month.

I'm proud of the writers that I have met personally this November that have stretched to 50k words, and I look forward to watching them squirm for several months under dog-earred copies of Strunk & White and The Chicago Manual of Style.

I'm proud of making a donation to NanoWriMo even though their painfully slow website server made me think twice about it. They must still like me at Nano despite my hissy fits--they gave me the halo thingy. Likely my complaints didn't make it through the molasses website.

I'm proud of somehow, someway finally getting logged onto JABBER. (No one was in the virtual room when I was there except for a brief and pleasant exchange with CD0189, so I know it wasn't a mirage).

I'm proud of being part of NaperWriMo and meeting quality people and dedicated writers this November.

--Steve