50,520 words later…!

I decided to take on the NaNoWriMo challenge.
Every day since November 1st I’ve written a little more of a first draft of my fist book. The only exception was the day of Joe’s funeral.
I finished today!
By the time I was wrapping up yesterday’s writing, I could see 50,000 words were too few. I closed my session by writing an outline. Today I picked up a few paragraphs where the outline left off, but again, I could see there were countless hours of writing left to tell the story. I outlined again, right up to the final scene.
True to my plan, I’m going to stop with what I have now and let my words sit unread by me or anyone else for the next month.
Come January, I’ll gather 29 days of thoughts and begin the next part of this process, taking my time to flesh out each scene, develop dialogue, see better who these people are living in black and white on the screen and vivid color in my mind.
I thought surely I’d do a happy dance as I saved the last pages. Instead, my inner conversation ceased and a wide space opened for a slow exhale and my eyes filled with tears of gratitude.
can you write a poem after midnight dark
hold each word in a haze of drifting
rhythm rocking you to sleep
can you call your poem home
form its letters on sunlit parchment
swaying hazy eyed
or does another poem
write itself beneath your pen
while you breathe in morning