Last month, I decided to start an undertaking that most people would consider ridiculous: writing a 50,000-word novel in one month. So, with thousands of other crazy people, I committed myself to writing 1666.66 words a day for 30 days. This challenge is known as NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.

November is over, and I have something resembling a novel. (No, you can’t read it.) I didn’t write 1666.66 words every day. Some days I wrote nothing at all, and other days I would crank out 5,000 words.

The key to actually finishing the novel — or at least what all the pep talks told me — is to not edit, to just write. So that’s what I did. Even though I write thousands of words a day at work, coming home and writing for pure creativity was relaxing and, honestly, a lot of fun.

I can’t say I’ll do anything with the finished novel; I might not even read it again. But the experience reaffirmed my love of writing.