NaNoWriMo Is Gone and I Didn't Finish A Thing

National Novel Writing Month had come and gone for another year. Did I reach that 50,000 word count mark?

Nope.

Did I come close?

Well... I think that's all in how you look at it.

Did I come close to that word count while working on my novel? No. But I did write a good bit this month - Mostly for my classes and then here some. So this year wasn't a total bust.

I think next year I'll go for it. Or maybe I'll dedicate my own month to writing 50,000 words. November can be a really hard month for lots of people. Also, I think I'll pick my month to be one with 31 days. Hey, every little bit counts.

Why didn't I get much done on my novel. Many reasons, some of them good, some of them not so good.

• Work. My work schedule isn't always nailed down and it isn't always conducive to my creative times in the day. I am not a morning person, so working an eight-and-a-half hour day that starts at 6 am really zaps my energy
• School. Yes, school is supposed to be helping me on this novel not hindering me, but taking two classes is kinda of big work load when you're working close to full time as well. 
• Not living in my parents house. You don't realize it until you're gone, but living with your parents (at least mine) was kind of heavenly. My laundry was done, dinner was made, I had very few domestic worries. Now I do. And sure, I can put off doing the dishes for a night, but not much more than that.
• Lazy... That one speaks for itself
• And family stuff. You read (or maybe not) the posts on my Uncle. Depression kind of zaps the creativity out of me like waking up before the sun and loosing a family member like that brings about those storm clouds for sure.
• Revision. I tend to get really bogged down in revising what I've already done. Which I think is silly. I need to finish the damn thing before I try to make it perfect (and it will never be perfect but you know what I mean.) 

So new plan. Now that I'm not going to be workshopping anything this next semester (but I will be working on a big research project - oh and did I mention it was on Harry Potter? Hell yes it is!) I will finish the novel. The first rough draft, before I go back to campus this summer.

But then again, my plans never really work out too well. I think I just need to take it one day at a time.