NaNoWriMo winner 2009!

Tonight I finished my novel for National Novel Writing Month - NaNoWriMo - well beyond the required 50,000 words! I slid in at 51,757, a very respectable number, I think.

Dave finished his, too, so we both won! Now to see if Chicago can out-write Holland for fifth place world-wide...

Dave's out of town right now, so I decided to attend the ChiWriMo finale event at Open Books in Chicago. I rubbed elbows with fellow authors, who were at various stages of completeness. The group got together to help each other write, and we had various fifteen-minute writing "sprints," with prizes going to those who wrote the most in that time. (One winner wrote over 1,000 words in fifteen minutes; I'm not sure how much quality was going on there.)

I did feel better about my writing rate, after talking to others, and I certainly felt better about my plot line. Some people talked about their epic tales of dragon slaying, and others talked about filling the time (and word count) with lots of sex scenes. Oh well.

So here's the deal: I would like to edit the novel during NaNoEdMo in March, so I am hoping that some people are willing to read it in the meantime and send me their comments. Please tell me if you would like me to send you the PDF of my book, and I will be happy to e-mail it to you. It is a rough first draft, but keep in mind that I wrote it in the space of thirty days.

OK, I'm signing off now, because I've had enough of writing for today. Again, please let me know if you would like me to send you a digital copy of the book, and I'd love it if you'd tell me what you think (and how it could be improved). Yay for writing frenzies!