Well, I did it. After 4 years of participating in NaNoWriMo, I have finally, FINALLY made it to 50k, and ze pretty purple bar. About &^*@!^&* time, too.

I'm happy about it even though I realize my story leaves a lot to be desired and it's not even done yet. This is the most I've ever written on one project. It's satisfying to see the purple bar because over the four years I've done it, it became more and more a case of, "I have to do this. I have something that I need to prove to myself." Well, my friends, tonight I did prove it to myself. And if I never win another NaNo, I'll still be happy, because I've overcome the challenge once, and that's enough. I no longer have to prove myself to myself, if you get my meaning.

I also proved to myself that there's no big secret to winning it, apart from just sitting your rear end down and writing. Simple? Not always. It also means that you have to sit down and write even on the days that you don't want to. There have been days that it felt like pulling teeth to just write something, anything down.

My wordcount for tonight, including the dedication is 50054. The dedication is 31 of that. Here's the dedication:

To Mom and Dad, who support me no matter what. This book also goes out to Kit, my cheerleader for this whole crazy adventure. I couldn't have done it without you.

And it's true.

I think from here, I'll continue working on it, but I'll also get back to work on Disappearing Act, my novel from last year. I know how I want it to end now, so all I've got to do is write the ending. I'm so close to being done on that one. I'm not going to give up now. It's been put on the back burner for NaNo, so I'm going to pick it up again. I read over it during Thanksgiving break, and I realized that, despite all its faults, of which there are several, I still like it a lot more than the one I'm currently working on. It's the one that I couldn't not tell. And it's too late in the month to start another project, which I was going to do once I got done with Morris Elementary, if I got done earlier in the month, like I was planning on doing. Oh, well, there's always next year.