NaNoWriMo: the end (but not really)

Well, we did it.  The three of us completed our novels today, validated our word counts on the NaNoWriMo site, and were declared winners.  We have prizes to claim - a web badge which only I can use, the kids being blog-less, certificates of completion, and later on, a coupon for a free proof copy of the novel.  (I think the kids get those, not me.  The "young writers program" is slightly different from the adult.)

The work is not finished, though.  There is a lot of editing to do.  James in particular has so many typos.  When I look over his open office file, I see so many red lines!  But there is other editing to do too.  The stories are in rough draft form now. The object of this project was not to end up with a perfect novel after 30 days.

I hope the kids' enthusiasm for their stories lingers.  I don't want the editing process to be a burden.  It will be up to me to keep it from becoming one.  I think we'll take a little break for a few days and then print them out, chapter by chapter.   We'll work on them slowly.

Then there's my story.  Mine needs a lot of work!  Not for typos, so much, though I have plenty.  It's a pretty disjointed story right now.  Chapters are out of place, I think. There are a lot of holes in it.  Continuity is poor; I know that in one case I said a book belonged to one person, then later said it belonged to someone else.  I have one episode that has two endings!  And I like them both.  Well, not really like but can't seem to choose between them yet.

I guess I never did say what my story is about, except that it's based on Swallows and Amazons, our favorite family read-aloud of all time.  But I need to go watch an episode of "Green Acres" with my kids now so I'll save my story synopsis for a little later.  I don't know if I'll be able to revive this blog after our 27 days of writing, but at least I can come back and write that.