Let me start by saying that this is meant for NaNoWriMo participants, not winners or losers. This is for anyone who gave NaNoWriMo a shot, regardless of what or how much they wrote.

Now, a quick thing: I don't believe in losers when it comes to NaNoWriMo. Instead, I see it as the people who hit the fifty thousand word goal and the people who didn't. The way I see it, no one can be a loser when everyone ended up with more words on the page than they did on the night of October 31.

This year, I was in the trenches with you. I sat down on November 1 with a blank word document, ready to write and terrified of how daunting fifty thousand words in a month was. I took days off when I was sick or too stressed, and I had days where all I really did was write. There were days I was excited that I'd hit the deadline, maybe even early, and there were days where I was so anxious that I wouldn't make the goal, that I'd fail. I saw all of the writers on Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter who were doing better than me from the first day, and I envied them. I was the one ahead of my friends for most of the month. I was there through everything that you experienced, and I know how it feels.

That being said, I'm proud of you. I don't care if you wrote five hundred words (or less!), over fifty thousand, or anywhere in between; I'm still proud of you. I'm proud that you had enough confidence in yourself and your craft to try something new and challenging. I'm proud that you sat down and put time into your writing when things like Thanksgiving and school and work stood in your way.

NaNoWriMo isn't easy, and people outside of our world don't seem to understand that. I can't even count the number of times I had to explain what NaNo was or how far in I was. I was constantly told that I was crazy. Even creative writing professors asked me if this challenge would come of anything worthwhile. It was disconcerting, to say the least, but I powered through, and I hope that you did too. After all, it's your life and your art and not anyone else's.

So this article is coming out in the first week of December. You know what that means, right? It's over. It's December. Whether you won or didn't, you still grew over the course of the month, writing more than you had on October 31 and learning at least something about your writing and your process. You made the choice to head into the trenches when many writers won't, and you made some progress. Take a break now. Breathe, catch up on TV or books, and get some sleep. You did it, and it's over. There's nowhere else to go but forward, so take what you got and bring it forward with you.