The end of Nanowrimo

So remember that blog post I wrote at the end of October? The one where I said I'd take the Nanowrimo challenge and write an average of 1,666.66 words a day or 50,000 words in the month of November? Then there was that second post I wrote a week into November where I talked about taking breaks between writing. So you want to know the truth? OK, here it is. I tried. I tried really hard for about a day. Then I tried hard for another couple days. Then I just simply tried for the rest of the week. Then I stopped trying and just enjoyed November. And that was the best choice I could have made. Because in the whole month of November I wrote a total of 469 words of the novel I thought I would write. (Hey, that's almost a whole essay, right?) But I wrote a lot of other words. Words in e-mails, words in comments on other people's blogs, words on Facebook posts. And I did a lot of things. Came back from a trip to the southern states where I got to see family and friends I haven't seen for more than a year (or two). Cleaned a church member's house and yard almost from top to bottom in four days. Took more pictures than I care to go through of the family of three deer that frequent the yard. Drove to and from the Orono area several times where we're moving to for Jonathan to take his master's. Went to New Jersey with Jonathan and his mum over US Thanksgiving weekend to help his grandparents clean up their shore house from the damage it got during Hurricane Sandy. Helped Jonathan clean the chimney (actually, he did all the work, I just held on to the rope). Helped Jonathan hang Christmas lights on the house. And today, moved the first van-load of things up to our new apartment!

I don't think I could have done all those things and also written a novel. And I'm not really sad that I gave up on Nanowrimo because if I hadn't, I might not have been able to do all those things and more. Maybe I'll actually do Nanowrimo one year. Maybe I'll actually write a novel or a book or even just write up family stories some day. Maybe. But maybe not. At this point in time, I think I need to spend more time with people and less time with my computer. So I'm not sad that my 469 words didn't turn into a book this month. I got to embrace life in other ways and I want to keep on doing that. Nanowrimo, thanks for the challenge, but it wasn't quite what I needed this year. I'm so glad I started, though, to realize it wasn't my main priority.