Winning NaNoWriMo.

 Just finished cooking up something good!  Love that sweet smell of accomplishment.

When I was fifteen, I traveled across the southern part of the United States with a busload of other boys.  We were on our way to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico.  Our journey had begun in Tampa and it would take six anticipation-filled days to get to Philmont.  Following the bus ride, we were to begin a twelve-mile trek that stretched for fifty-three miles through the mountains of New Mexico.  The hike was brutal in parts and tested our will to continue.  In other places we found great enjoyment in the experience.  There was one place on the trail where we were scheduled to stay a second overnight and made no progress in distance or days.  In another place, we completed a hike that seemed impossible for miles uphill, hauling gallons of extra water to a campsite where we would find none.

At one point in our trek, we got to a point near the end where we picked up the pace.  It was maybe day ten or eleven, but everyone suddenly was in the best of moods.  We were conditioned to our task and found less challenge in it.  On the last day, as we came over the ridge, we caught sight of base camp.  The end of the trail.  To set foot on that soil was to become Philmont alumni and walk away with a patch to forever wear on our uniforms to designate us as finishers. 

As winners.

I remember the cheers that rose from my crew as the camp came into view.  Being of the same mind at that point we began running down the hill, our exhausted legs finding new life with the promise of the end of the journey.  As we checked in at the bottom, we dropped our packs and congratulated each other on seeing the trek through to the end, our previous trials forgotten, leaving nothing but good memories to take home to Florida.

I revisited this memory as my NaNoWriMo journey came to an end today.  The two experiences were similar in many ways.  Some days were full of great beauty and found me accomplishing a great deal, others saw no progress at all.  Some days took everything I had to keep going, taking me to the point of tears once.  And at the end, when I discovered that I was less than 10,000 words until the end,I started running, chasing my main character down the hill and into the hallowed ground of the winner's page.  She told me the rest of her story at machine gun pace and I averaged around 3,000 words per day over the past three days.  It turned out to be the easiest and most enjoyable part of the novel.

And now it's over.

And I won again.

 A well-deserved Twix after wrapping up the novel.  Revisions begin December 25th!