NaNoWriMo Ends

Usually, if I don't write 50,000 words toward a novel as part of National Novel Writing Month, I would consider it a failure. I only wrote 25,000 words in November, but I'm not beating myself up about it. I wrote more than I might have if I wasn't doing NaNoWriMo.
When I started, I planned to continue writing my memoir An American Nanny in France. But as I started writing, I realized that I wasn't feeling it.
Instead, an image kept coming back to me that one of my friends had told me about during her childhood. As we were running one day, a flock of birds flew overhead and Stephanie said, "That's how many people will be at my wedding." She said it was thing they said when they were little kids.
So that is the image I began my new novel with. Three little girls playing in a field when a flock of birds flew over. Then the novel jumps ahead to one of those girls as a grown up who is not satisfied with her life. She's a near agoraphobic and has cut off most of her social ties. She decides to change her life through feng shui and channeling her childhood friends. 
I'm calling the novel "A Charm of Finches," which is what a flock of finches is called.
So, I didn't succeed at NaNoWriMo, but I'm not counting it as a failure. I started a new novel and I have nearly a third of it written, so that can't be all bad, right?