The evening of the 23rd, after briefly waiting for my best friend to join me, I typed my novel’s 50,000th word. Few words can describe the feeling, which is super ironic since the whole point of NaNoWriMo is to write down pretty much all the words you can think of. This was my seventh NaNo, and somehow, the thrill of completing the challenge never gets old.

Some of you may not have hit 50k yet, but that’s fine, and besides, you still have so much to look forward to. As a final NaNoWriMo progress article and (hopefully) a motivator, here is a list of things that tend to be true on the final week of NaNo:

1. Your word processor document takes forever to load, save, open or close.

Maybe it’s because I’m still old-school and still write in Word document, but once my novel passes 40k, the whole thing just takes up so much metaphorical space. Last week I was having computer issues, and it was at the point where when I hit ctrl + s (as I am self-trained to do every two sentences), it would crash Word completely and I would have to force a restart. Luckily, the problem is cleared up now and I no longer panic every time I have to save. But still—it’s a big ole hunk of words.

2. In conjunction with #1…. so many PAGES.

“Wait, what was this character’s eye color?”

*scroll up seventy-three pages*

*search for ten minutes*

“Ah, that’s right. Green. Man, I really should make a character profile.”

Yes, you really should make character profiles. They are life savers. Do it right after you finish reading this.

3. Possible existential crisis time.

This could go one of two ways. Either you can look at the mass of words you’ve written and think ‘wow, I did that!’ or you can rake your nails through your hair and think ‘what in the goodness of this green Earth did I just write?’ I’ve been through both, usually at least once a week during a NaNo challenge. Existential crises are by no means a new thing to writers, but the important thing during November is not to let it grow. Full-scale meltdowns are for December. Worry not—it will pass, it always does. Just don’t let it get a hold of you when you still have words to get down. Even if you’ve reached 50k: if the story is unfinished, just push through and complete it. Every story deserves an ending.

4. Coffee.

That is all. Just coffee.

By the way, I’ve noticed that during November, my inherent awareness of Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks holiday deals sharpens. This is possibly one of those low-key super powers that comes with being a writer. We must find a way to harness this and use it to take over the world…

5. The progress bar is almost full, or better!

Fun fact: when you cross the 50k line and validate your novel, the progress bar turns from bright green to PURPLE. It’s beautiful—and your novel also gets a fun winner’s ribbon on the lower right-hand corner. This is also beautiful. To validate your novel, just copy and paste the entire document into the website’s built-in word counter. If you are writing by hand, use a lorem ipsum generator and paste that into the box. (This particular one only goes up to 10,000 words, so you have to paste into the counter five times).

6. Winner goodies

Personally, I have only bought two winner’s t-shirts: 2016’s and 2015’s, but the excitement and fulfillment of being able to wear one is incredible. First of all, they’re great conversation-starters when someone asks what in the world NaNoWriMo is; or, if someone already knows, then it can be an elegant ice-breaker. Plus, the designs are usually adorable and elegant. The NaNo merch store also has mugs, posters, pens, notebooks, USB drives and a whole lot of random stuff writers use during their daily lives. I highly suggest checking out the NaNo store. (Hey, Christmas is coming up. If you have a writer friend, you can’t go wrong here).

Well, that’s it, folks. If you won NaNoWriMo, then congratulations! You just achieved something many people never even dream of completing in an entire lifetime. Go punch a statue and watch it crumble beneath your infinite strength. If you didn’t win, then look at all the words you did write and pat yourself on your hard-worked back. Any words are better than no words—and hey, you still have the beginning of a really great story. Why not finish it?

The only thing now is to relax (…how do we do that, again?) and kick around until Christmas. The New Year brings new writing challenges and opportunities, so maybe play around with editing your novel, read a friend’s NaNo project, or just log off and get some sun for goodness sake. We’ve been holed up for an entire month. Let’s go make sure the world hasn’t been overrun by zombies or something.

For a look back:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3