Thank Goodness It's Over

And just like that, it has been a week since NaNoWriMo has ended! This year I ended the month with 50, 168 words, but my story is far from over. Today was my region's TGIO party and the first time that I was able to make it. And I had a nice time with my  fellow writers

As an ice breaker to get to know other people from the region, one of the ML's gave each person a certificate with their username on it and then we had to talk with someone that we hadn't met/talked with before and share a goal that we reach or something that wasn't related to our word count. Once we had talked with someone about the goals or whatever it was that we did then we had to sign each other's certificate and hand them back to the ML (Municipal Liason) who was handing them out.

Once we finished with the ice breaker we did lunch and then the ML's started handing out the certificates back to everyone. As we got the certificates we got to pick from pencils, red pens or purple pens and attached to each writing utensil was a little inspirational note. I went with a purple pen since I didn't feel like a red one or a pencil and the note attached to my pen says "Purple is the color of creativity, of inspiration, of mystery... Use this pen in good health to create new ideas and to edit your novel."  We also got little cards that say National Novel Writing Month across the top with the region's logo and website on it and the year the region was started on it. Underneath the logo, it says "Congratulations (insert username) for writing (insert book title) with (insert word total) words." Since I helped host a write-in at one of the libraries close to me, on the bottom of my card it says Thanks for hosting a write-in (location) on it and I got a sticker with the logo on it.

Whether it is to a write-in, the Kick-off party or the TGIO party, we can bring a stuffed animal writing buddy. I remembered to bring my writing buddy to the kick-off party back in October, but I forgot to bring him with today and to the three write-ins that I made it too. At the kick-off party and the TGIO party, we always take a group picture with our writing buddies, so I was able to borrow an extra one that someone had brought. During the pictures, there are always a few pictures that we take where we throw the stuffed animals in the air, though you have to be careful that you don't throw it too far. There were also door prizes, I got a small notebook that I might keep in my car. And there were raffle prizes that were donated by some of the libraries that we held write-ins at during NaNo. I don't know if other regions do or have this, but the region I am in has a theme song that gets sung every year at the TGIO party. And it is set to the tune of Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, and it was a lot of fun.

So, all in all, I had a good time with NaNo and had fun getting to hang out with other writers at write-ins and the kick-off and TGIO parties. And I can say that this is the first year that I have actually liked the story idea that I used for NaNo. Hopefully, I still have the same enthusiasm for it when it comes to editing and finishing it. I will do my best to keep the blog updated with the process when I start doing that next month/year.