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A good writing year

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I have taken some good writing steps this year.

Blogging
I have been fairly consistent with blogging, albeit a bit sparse. I have tried to post at least once each month and have succeeded with my personal blog and have missed only one month on this one. I plan to continue blogging and am thinking through lots of ideas and am trying to make some decisions and goals. I hope to clarify those goals enough to post them early in the new year.

NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing MonthI surprised myself by participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I had always resisted the idea because I don't write fiction, but for some reason, I just decided to try it - to write an autobiographical novel. I'm still not sure it qualifies as a novel, but it was an incredible experience. I assumed that the greatest value would be simply the exercise, the discipline - and it was definitely worthwhile as that. But I also learned so much about myself and my own process of writing. Plus, of course, I now have a first draft of over 61,000 words that I can pick up and begin to edit or re-work whenever I am ready. That's right; I DID it!!! I made the 50,000 word goal during the month of November, but that didn't get me to the end of the story - so I continued to write through December to wrap it up.

I'm pretty proud of myself about both of these accomplishments. And I am looking forward to doing more writing in the coming year. Sure enough; I am a writer.

How about you, my writing friends? What writing are you doing? Are you setting writing goals for the coming year? They don't have to be big and grand; in fact, they probably shouldn't be. Pretty much any writing that you do can be beneficial.

May this be a good year for you, my writing friends.
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