November 2nd, 2014, the second day of NaNoWriMo, I started writing. I'd done NaNo every year since my Freshman year of high school (2008), but I'd never made writing a daily habit. It was time. It was NaNo and I was in high spirits, so I decided that I was going to write at least 1,667 words a day, every day during NaNo. I could write more, but never less than that.

That’s exactly what I did. I finished the month with over 100K words of a novel—double the goal—and stars in my eyes. I didn’t want to stop, and I wasn’t done with my novel, so I just kept going. Mid-December I had almost 140K words—and realized that I’d probably been working on two novels the whole time.