Well, November is over, and so is NaNoWriMo. I utterly failed to complete the 50,000-word target, achieving only about 18,000 in the end. That’s only about 600 words a day, about a third of the target for the fast-paced writing month.

But what did I achieve? I managed to make headway into the companion book for The Redemption of Erâth, Legends and Myths. While it’s still far from complete, it’s certainly more advanced than it was a month ago. I also wrote an average of 600 words a day, which is far more than I’ve normally ever managed to achieve. Six hundred words a day is 4,200 words a week, which is nearly the length of a chapter of Ancients and Death. At that rate, I’d be done with the third book by the end of December, which is more or less where I wanted to be anyway.

Speaking of Ancients and Death, I managed to get down an entire chapter in one day on Wednesday. The entire chapter 22, A Lord’s Fall, is now drafted and complete. That leaves me with only three chapters left until the end of the book, which is terribly exciting to me. Come the new year, I’ll be able to start revisions and edits, chopping some of the content entirely (I have chapters that are over 10,000 words long on a goal of 6,000), and finally submitting to my editor for a final polish.

With that being said, I’m going to start needing beta-readers in the near future, so as a conclusion to this rambling post, hit me up if you want a free book to read and would like to give input and feedback on where the story is going so far.

So I didn’t win NaNoWriMo … but I still feel pretty good about myself at the moment. Which is a win.

Just a quick update to give you all an idea of just how poorly I’m doing at this year’s NaNoWriMo. To date, I’ve written exactly 14,467 words of Legends and Myths of Erâth, which is about half of where I should be. I’m very disappointed in myself.

The trouble is that I’m so often tired and exhausted when coming home from work that I fail to write in the evenings. Yesterday and today I had off, but instead of writing I’ve spent most of it sleeping (and buying a new car). And now, of course, instead of writing I’m blogging, which is still writing but not the kind that counts.

According to the NaNoWriMo website, I’d have to write 2,359 words a day to finish on time. Or else I’ll be done around Christmas. So here I go, back to work, scrabbling desperately to finish a book that’ll never be done on time. Oh well.