This year's participation in NaNoWriMo is my best ever -- I never fell behind, often staying at least a full day ahead, and I finished with plenty of time to spare. In fact, not only did I cross the 50,000-word finish line in time, I actually finished the first draft of the novel before the end of November. As I mentioned in my NaNoWriMo-specific blog, I went through a 20-year hiatus from doing enough writing to complete a first draft, so I'm pretty happy that I've completed two first drafts in the span of 13 months. Apart from finishing up my NaNoWriMo 2006 novel, I'm going to shift my efforts away from writing new stories (the fun part) to polishing up existing novels (the less exciting, but still rewarding, part). I've wanted to get a novel published, but I've never actually submitted anything to a publisher (or agent), nor have I self-published a novel. My focus now will be on changing that -- taking the best of the stories I've penned to date and getting them ready to put in front of readers beyond my small circle of friends and family. This probably won't generate much "exciting news" for this blog, but I have hopes that it will be a worthwhile effort.