I’ve been quiet about Nanowrimo this year, not for any reason other than that I’ve been so busy trying to finish the story!

My novel, The Silent Grove, hit 50K about a week before November 30, but it wasn’t until today that the story was finally finished at 55K.

This marks my 14th consecutive Nanowrimo win (although there are a couple of years that I “cheated” – which only means I did not work on a single project but I did write 50K each time). My methodology was a bit different this year thanks to the new Nanowrimo website.

The built-in timer made it amazingly easy to see how much I could write in a single sprint. I found that 20-minute sprints were the most productive. I could write 500-800 words in that period of time. I could sometimes get my whole daily word count in just two sprints, although I usually did three. My best word counts came when I took long breaks between sprints.

I attended write-ins every Friday night at my local bookstore, the Toadstool Bookshop. I was able to crank out 2K+ words at every write-in, even hitting 4K once. I also did a write-in with my critique partner Nikole Breault, which resulted in another 4K day!

If you visit the page I just made for The Silent Grove, you can find more about my inspirations for the story and some of the playlists I listened to while writing.

Who else participated in Nanowrimo this year? How did it go for you?