NaNoWriMo is over, which means it’s time to take stock and see whether it was all worth it. Was it? Well, I did get this spiffy graphic:

Which means, yes, I “won” again this year. I’m particularly pleased since the month included not only Thanksgiving (which my wife and I host for the family, so lots of work) but a birthday weekend jaunt to New Orleans (thanks, honey!) and I still managed to keep to task and wind up with 50k+ words in the end.

I’m really happy with them, too. There are definitely things that need to get worked out in a second draft (I have notes, of course), but this story and this main characters and taking me to some different, interesting places. Alabrie, the city-state where the story is set, is shaping up to be a character all in itself.

It’s not done, of course, not even the first draft, but I can see the end of the tunnel. More than most books I had a real idea of what the entire story was before I sat down to write it. Still, much work still left to do.