The month of November is nearly over. Out there in the world, 300,000 people rush to finish. But I am not one of them.

Because I finished last night!

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) will officially end at midnight tonight, but amazingly, at 50,703 words, I validated my novel last night at 11:30pm. That’s new words – the book is about double that, but I wanted validation of my efforts this month. I honestly cannot believe that I did it. Eyes feel slightly crossed and everything has a muzzy sensation, mostly I think due to the hours spent in front of a screen and the lack of sleep. But it’s done!

What does that mean for you, my fair alpha readers?

It means that my basic, very, VERY rough draft is done. It also means that now, instead of working on new words, I can focus on revising and posting what I’ve done. And THAT means chapters will be coming fast and furious. My goal is to have revised and posted all chapters, the whole book, by Christmas Eve.

I’m calling it Alpha December; 25 days of non-stop revising and posting for your holiday reading pleasure.  Based on the fact that Chap. 11 is already up, that should translate into a chapter every two days to meet my deadline.

Sleep deprived? I can manage another month.

If you haven’t yet had a chance to start reading, I still very much look forward to your feedback and hope you will have time to read.

If you have started, but haven’t taken time to comment, please do so. Even an “I liked it” is helpful if you don’t know what else to say.

For those who have been steadily slogging along, reading and commenting as I post, I thank you. I hope you are enjoying it. And I hope I make your holidays a little more fun with a new story. Thank you for your patience.

And to any others out there who have had a story percolating in the back of their minds, I challenge you to start. Get it down on paper or screen. Camp NaNoWriMo starts in August and again in September, so you’ve got some time to prep your story if you want to go for something official. But start. It’s worth it.

NaNoWriMo is going splendidly even if I’m starting to get a bit crazy. This afternoon I crossed the 21,000 word mark.

I’m about 300 words ahead of schedule.that puts me at having finished the rough of chapter 17. Wow. It’s been awesome, but quite exhausting at the same time.

But being ahead means I’m allowing myself a little leeway to revise (since revision doesn’t give the same word counts, I have to be ahead before I can commit to them). That means I’m trying to revise chapters 11 and 12 tonight. I know I’ll get one done. Hopefully I can do both.

So stay tuned.