I won?

Yes, last Monday, November 18th, 2019, I passed the fifty-thousand-word mark and won my third #NaNoWriMo, out of the eight that I have participated in. That was also my first five-thousand-word day in about five years or more. I should be chuffed. And I am.

I have:

• Written close to twenty-five-thousand words in No Strings Attached
• Have close to a dozen rough drafts of articles for Medium (or somewhere)
• And I am less than three-thousand words away from finishing the impossible Chapter 10 in Ægir’s at which point it should be clear sailing to the end.

Not bad, right?

I did not quit there, though. As you can see, I have kept going. And I intend to keep going until November 30th. Actually, I intend to keep going until the day I breathe my last. Because I am a writer and that comes as naturally to me as breathing.

There are just so many unfinished stories that I need to complete. The trouble is that the more I write, the more stories I finish, the more there is to write.

Take No Strings Attached in 2012, I thought ‘Nice short story.’ I mean the title says it all, right? No Strings Attached. A one night stand, end of story. Except for the past couple of years, it has been itching at the back of my mind. Was that because of the comments asking for more, or simply my muse? Who knows. But I knew I needed to ‘finish’ it. Then came the idea of what happened if he had been badly disfigured. That goes along with my new writer’s tagline…

Fifty Shades meets Jane Austen with fat, old, dif-abled people.

How did she recognize him? What if that night had some serious strings for her? What if neither of them had been able to forget it? Could she make him see that love goes more than skin-deep even if that skin is covered in burn scars? And I was off to the races. I am almost done now. Only a few more thousand words to write.

Except I’m not. In the process of writing their story, secondary characters arose. Compelling ones with their own stories to share. The asexual teacher who is in a poly relationship with the gay son of a famous Marine colonel and his trans woman partner. The best friend who keeps hearing this call to the remote corner of Alaska. The other friend whose dead husband asked his two best friends to take care of her and their daughter. If that is not enough, suddenly a familiar face popped up, three actually: Kaitlin Danvers, Chase, and Chance. I mean who better to advocate for them than the woman whose mother taught that Nothing Done In Love can ever be wrong.

So, now instead of having one finished short story, I have one published novel, another that is mostly finished, but not edited or published, and three more to write. Who knows what spin-offs those will have?

That is how things work so often with my warped writer’s mind. I mean Sergeant Mike began as a quick award-winning short story. That then turned into a novella, which then became a full-length novel, two prequels, and I have no idea exactly how many follow-up books there are in the Miracle Tour series.

The Arrangement morphed into an Apocalypse story. And so on and so on.

The thing is I am reaching a place in my life where I have more time to focus on my writing. PanKwake is a teen. And all those tough years of home educating, trying this strategy and that has resulted in a pretty fucking awesome and surprisingly independent young woman that I am proud to know, let alone have spawned.

And the partner that I have spent the last three years becoming comfortable in our relationship is retiring. Yes, you heard it here first, folks. It is official. Alan Cox is retiring from Intel at the end of the year. Despite our one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old @HomeCrazzyHome needing massive work and me wanting to spend hours just talking with the most brilliant person, I have ever been privileged to meet, let alone wake up beside. Oh, and I forget…marry. That one is coming up in 2020, too.

Add to that, Alan’s faith in me as a creator. Not just his emotional and intellectual support of my endeavors but his financial as well. The freedom to create as I see fit, not to have to worry about making a living as an author, means that I can focus on what I love most. Writing.

And that is exactly what I intend to do. What I have been doing actually, since the Camp NaNo in July.

At long last, I want to get these people out of my head. And on to the screen. So, the two of you who like my Crazzy stories can find and enjoy them. That is all I want to do. All I have ever wanted. To write. And for someone, somewhere to get something out of it.

But right now, I need to get off here and go enjoy a new love. No, I took care of that business last night like the good girl I am. In addition to the quilting, sewing, and crafting that I have loved for so long, I have also discovered a passion for photography. I am off now to enjoy that.

But don’t worry by the time, I finish this blog I will have written over two-thousand-five-hundred more words today.

Yes, I am excited about what the new year holds, despite the mess that politicians and greedy billionaires have made of this world. And barring a real-life apocalypse, I intend to be happy with the man I love and my children in our @HomeCrazzyHome for another fifty years or so. But even if I wrote every waking hour for the rest of my life, I still would probably have dozens of stories ideas as I drew my last breath. Oh, but what a wonderful life it is to live.

And that is what winning is really all about.

I hope that each of you finds that special someone and that passion inside of you that makes this life worth living.