Follow-up on NaNoWriMo

Now that November is over, I am happy to say that I successfully finished NaNoWriMo! I wrote 50,000 words in one month!

I know the original widget doesn't say I made it to 50,000 words or level 100; there's some sort of glitch. Probably because I made it to 50,000 words at 11:30 on the night of the last day, and then the contest was over before the widget could update or something. As proof that I finished, here's a new one. This one didn't evolve, but it has the right numbers on it.

I couldn't have done it without my oldest son. The one who's obsessed with Pokemon. My tactic worked quite nicely. Throughout the month, he kept asking to see what level my Pokemon was and if it had evolved yet. When he would see it, he would say, "Mommy, write some more words, so you can level up your Eevee." And then he would go play something with his brothers so I could get a little bit of typing time in. 

He actually got so excited about it that he wanted to write his own story to get his own Pokemon leveled up too. Unfortunately, the widget only works with the official NaNo website, and you have to be 13 to sign up for an account. 

However, I did help him set a goal the way they do in the Young Writer's Program for NaNo. We set the goal of writing 100 words for the month of November. I thought this would be a challenge for him since his longest story previously written was only two sentences.

He finished in two days.

After that, he kept saying, "You still have more words to write Mommy? I'm done. I already won."

Talk about motivation. As it got closer to the end of November, I knew he was going to be disappointed in me if I didn't finish. This just made me want to try harder. I ended up writing over 11,000 words the last day in my efforts to win, and it paid off! I finished with just half an hour to spare. It feels great to be able to accomplish something like that. But it feels even better to do it with people you love and to help each other get there.

I suppose that's why they always tell people to have a buddy for goals you set like losing weight or exercising. I think the same is true of anything you want to accomplish. If you have someone who can be your cheerleader or motivator, it's easier to find that motivation to do it, even when it seems hard. But it's even better when you have someone who will commit to doing things with you, where you can both help each other reach your goal.