Oh wow, it’s the last day of the year/decade. I guess I should talk about how NaNo went and about all the stuff that happened in December before I jump into the year’s end wrap up and all that.
November
For those of you who missed my last two posts about NaNo, I recommend going here and here to check them out before I sum up my NaNo experience. But long story short, I did it! I won NaNo and I wrote 50,218 words in 27 days. Not only that, I finished the story I wanted to tell.
It’s by no means a perfect story. I skipped whole sections because I didn’t have time to put in the research I needed to write them. But the shape of the story is there and overall, I’m happy with the draft I achieved. It’ll be a good jumping-off point for future revisions and I felt like I got a really good feel for the characters. And even though no first draft is perfect and this first draft is by no means an exception to that rule, I feel as though I captured the essence of the story I wanted to tell which is far from easy and not something I’ve always been able to do. But I’ve been working on not second-guessing myself while writing and I guess that’s starting to pay off.
December
I took the month off from writing in December which was both difficult and easy. Difficult because I tie so much of my day-to-day identity with whether or not I’ve written anything and easy because December has been so dang busy.
Let’s break down exactly what happened, shall we?
November 28th, I boarded a plane in Perth, Australia and flew to Arizona via Hong Kong and LA. The last two days of November are a jet-lagged blur and I’m not entirely sure they happened but they must have because I made it out the other side, didn’t I? Once the jet lag started to wear off, it was time to start getting ready for my wedding.
That’s right: My Wedding.
I got married on December 14th to my favorite person.
It was a small ceremony held at the Chapel in my Grandmother’s retirement community with only family and a few family-like friends present. My aunt officiated. My mother and a very close friend sang during the ceremony. My brother was my man of honor.
It was a beautiful day, filled with love and laughter, the kind of day I hoped it would be.
The day after the wedding, we hung out with our guests and played board games. I loved being able to spend time with my aunts and uncles and cousins and friends and not just be “the Bride”.
And then we flew to Maine and all came down with colds, recovered(ish) in time for Christmas with my maternal grandparents and then set about getting ready for the second wedding reception.
That’s right, we had a second wedding reception for all my Maine friends and we’ll probably have a third wedding reception once we get back to Australia and have had some time to rest.
But even though I’m exhausted from all the wedding-related activities, I’m glad we held the second reception. It was lovely to be able to celebrate with friends I haven’t seen in a while what with being in Australia and all.
And now the year is almost over and we’ve reached that period of the year where time seems to disappear and the days are slow and comfortable and I suppose I could do a little writing, but my goal was to take the month off and besides, I have to finish packing up my childhood bedroom and sorting through all the stuff I’ve accumulated over the last ten years my family’s been based in Maine because just as a new year is about to start so too is a new chapter of my life, but unlike with my NaNo manuscript, I’d like to have the old chapter finished and tied up in a ribbon before I travel onwards.
Thank you for reading and Happy New Year.
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