Last month I participated in NaNoWriMo for the nth time, but unlike other years, I knew going in that I wasn’t going to hit the 50K word mark by November 30.

What I didn’t know is how MUCH I’d miss it by.

For the uninitiated, the goal of National Novel Writing Month is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s 1667 words per day. In past years, that required me to write at least twice a day because it’s rare for me to write more than 1000 words at a time. Because of the pace I’ve been working for the past two years and the complexity of this new novel, I knew my daily goals would be much lower.

I did write almost every day, but this year, instead of 1667, I averaged 220 words per day. At a final count of 6,612 words, I barely passed the Day 3 milestone (5,000). And yet, I’m okay. I didn’t freak out. When I saw other writers’ progress updates, I cheered them on, then laughed a little maniacally because I knew that wouldn’t be me this year.

There’s usually a group of writers failing at NaNo to commiserate with. That helped, but honestly, I think I was so ready for a mental break that I knew I NEEDED this. I needed to fail. Because reclaiming my sanity was more important than cranking out a first draft in a month.

I feel like I’ve grown as not only a writer, but a person. Over the years, I’ve gotten better at recognizing when something has to give, when I can’t do everything, and choosing what will fall off the old to-do list.

I highly recommend it.

In the meantime, I’m diving into this new book, a darker, twisty, psychological story that’s very different from everything else I’ve written. And I’m giving myself plenty of time to work on it, because I have no intention of failing there.