November 30th is here, and around the world, those who aren’t finished yet are writing like the wind to complete their novels for National Novel Writing Month.

For those who finished early: Congratulations! There is nothing like taking on an impossible task with an intimidating deadline and hitting your goal before you needed to. You were blessed with words and ideas and creative flow and plenty of time to write.

For those who finished today: Congratulations! You did it! 50K words in 30 days! You are awesome. You were blessed with tenacity and determination (also know in some circles as stubbornness) and you beat the odds.

For those who are nowhere near finished: Congratulations! You took on this crazy challenge and did what you could. You wrote something, even if it wasn’t what you’d hoped for. You were blessed with important lessons. Maybe you learned you need to use an outline. Maybe you learned you can’t write with an outline. Maybe you learned you really aren’t actually interested in writing after all. Whatever the lesson, this insane experiment has taught you something you didn’t know about yourself. Pat yourself on the back and hold on to what you learned.