Well, it’s December now. All of the groggy little writers who spent a month writing 50,000 words are sleeping in and waking up to see the world hasn’t fallen to shivers while they’ve been away. Everything’s much the same.

Except, of course, for those of us who made the journey.

Victors or not in the challenge, we return laden with words. The greatest treasure a writer could ask for. We lost sleep and caught colds and gave ourselves bloodshot eyes and sent each other memes in the dark of night to tell each other keep writing, keep writing! And we came out again on the other side.

Perhaps I embellish a bit. Perhaps it’s not quite like the exploits of a tremendous explorer. Perhaps writing about dragons isn’t the same as meeting them and splashing the spray of salty waves against a ship made of ink won’t quite give you the taste of them on your lips.

But it is something, and I’ll hazard a guess that the handful of people across the world that made the attempt are a good measure more adventurous for it.

So here’s to the adventure, and to all of us who made it. The lunatics, the people who finished, the people who didn’t,

the writers in all of us.

Come tell me a story.