Congrats on surviving NaNoWriMo 2016. Whether you reached your 50K goal or not, you are a winner because you give it your all. You wrote. You set up a system to deal with your internal editor, schedule writing time, and find a support system, such as this site, to keep you on track and going forward, no matter how war you got. You did it.

Now what?

Thanks to the fantastic and creative work of past NaNoWriMo participants, we have access to tons of answers to that question.

Fist, NaNoWriMo doesn’t end just because the month of November is over. There are many events in your areas and online. NaNoWroMi offers “The ‘Now What?’ Months to help you keep going and staying on track from January through to the next NaNoWriMo in November. They have extensive archives of tips and pep talks to keep you going as well.

There is an active NaNoWriMo forum called Life After NaNoWriMo to help others to keep going afterwards.

If you are ready to publish, you can share your published entry on the Published Wrimos list.

Beth Cato wrote a great article on “Beginning After NaNoWriMo” tp take you step-by-step through the process. Here are some other great tips and resources:

• Your NaNoWriMo Survival Guide: Before, During & After – WritersDigest.com
• What To Do After NaNoWriMo, Since You Now Have a Manuscript On Your Hands (Spoiler Alert: The Work Isn’t Over) – Bustle
• 7 Things to Do When NaNoWriMo Is Over – The Write Practice
• Resources for after NaNoWriMo (or any first draft!) – Susan Dennard
• Life After NaNoWriMo: Facing the Technical Edit Like a Pro – ProWritingAid
• After #NaNoWriMo: A Writer’s Checklist — Amy Stuart
• How to REALLY self-edit your novel after Nanowrimo: 8 rookie mistakes to avoid! – Creativindie
• What To Do After Nanowrimo – Tom Doyle, Writer
• How to keep writing after NaNoWriMo: 6 steps towards improving your writing habit – On the Write Track
• How to Adjust to Life After NaNoWriMo – Something Delicious
• What to Do With Your NaNoWriMo Story After Midnight November 30th – The Huffington Post
• After NaNoWriMo… What? – Neil D’Silva
• After NaNoWriMo: 5 Ways To Sell Your Novel – Penelope Redmond
• Bang2Write – 5 Ways to Keep Writing After NaNoWriMo by Rosie Claverton

If these aren’t enough, here is a collection of Pinterest finds for life after NaNoWriMo.

The one piece of advice that all of these people have in common is to keep going. You’ve created something here. Good, bad, or ugly, it is a gem in the rough and it is time now to start to hone it, chipping away the junk rock to find the beauty within, and polish it to make it shine.

There is no bad writing. There is potential in what you wrote. Keep working on it.

Don’t stop writing.

If you arrived late to this series to support NaNoWriMo participants, check out our writing tips, NaNoWriMo prompts, and writing tips for NaNoWriMo on our Writers in the Grove site.