What a whirlwind of a month! These past 30 some days have been pretty crazy and moving at light speed. Last month, about mid-way through my novel, I started to really slow down. I decided I’d write a blog post to jump-start my creative juices before each writing session. Well, that lasted all of two posts. While it helped warm up my literary muscles, it also delayed my noveling by another 20-30 minutes. Given that I wouldn’t typically start writing until after 7:00 or 8:00 at night, and was already going to bed well after Melanie, I stopped with the pre-writing writing altogether. In fact, just about all of my writing came to a halt…

“What? Who’s there? Hello?” door flies open “Egads! Writer’s Block! What are you doing here? No, no don’t come any closer! Ah!” #NaNoWriMo

— Mike Branski (@mikebranski) November 24, 2011

Just this past week I finally wrote back to my friend in Stockholm, Sweden, after sitting on the email for over a month. My inbox, which was until then consistently hovering around Inbox Zero, was suddenly flooded with 30+ messages awaiting my attention. My blog suffered, my email took a hit, I questioned my novel and whether I was going to finish it. I was feeling pretty drained. Then Thanksgiving happened.

I don’t know what, specifically, but we left my parents’ a little earlier than we normally might have and went home. When we did, I sat down at the computer and just wrote. And wrote, and wrote. From 6:30 or so until well past midnight I churned out words that raced out of my mind almost faster than I could write them. Before I knew it, hours had passed and not only did I get caught up, I *got ahead* and broke the 40,000 word barrier, setting myself up for a smoother pace for the remaining days of the competition.

I’m ending the night at 40,691 words, having written a grand total of 5,413 tonight. #NaNoWriMo

— Mike Branski (@mikebranski) November 25, 2011

One of the biggest themes I noticed throughout my writing was that violence (fight scenes, accidental dismemberment, etc) was a *fantastic* way to let loose the flood gates and get the words flowing.

I just shot my main character in the chest. Writer’s block: I killed it. #NaNoWriMo

— Mike Branski (@mikebranski) November 25, 2011

Where does that leave me now? My inbox is nearing zero again, I’ve started writing (and, in fact, have a number of things I’d like to write about now), and I can officially say I’ve  written a novel. What else could possibly be left to do? Oh, right, start my edits; I haven’t spellchecked in 30,000 words. Hello, January.