NaNo Update: Day 30

Yup!  I did it!  My WiP has broken 50,000 words, all in the month of November.  And it feels awesome.

Of course, 50K isn't a whole YA novel.  I've got a lot more writing, and then a heck of a lot of editing ahead of me.  (I can't wait!)  But for the moment, I'm going to take a minute to do something else.

See, I have no idea whether this book will ever see the light of day.  If I'm realistic, odds are good that it won't.  But it's already indebted to so many people.

So if you'll indulge me for a minute, I'd like to do a mini-acknowledgments section to celebrate winning NaNo.

Thanks to Mr. S for not minding about all the laundry and dishes that piled up periodically while I was writing.

Thanks to my family/friends/former students and colleagues who acted interested rather than skeptical when I said, "I'm working on a YA novel."

Thanks to my awesome friend Nicole who made me the world's greatest "Last Writing Day" podcast.  It was on when I crossed 50K ("Eye of the Tiger", to be exact--I feel good about that.)

Thanks to Willow, my kitty, for glaring at me when I watched Brotherhood 2.0 videos instead of writing and purred contentedly on my lap when I was thinking about getting up, so I had to keep writing instead.

And of course, thanks to the people I've met through this blog.  So many of you were NaNo Buddies, posted updates of your own, cheered me on, and generally made me feel like part of a community.  If you've left comments here, responded to panicky emails, exchanged tweets with me, shared your own writing, sent tea, or answered weirdly specific medical questions, you know who you are, and I really, really appreciate it.  I've been noodling around with the idea of NaNo since I was a freshman in college (2003!) and I never even came close before.

If you're NaNoing yourself, then good luck getting to your goal by day's end!  If you've already gotten there, CONGRATULATIONS!  And if you spent the month working on something else entirely, I hope it went well.  And if not--well, it's snowing as I type this, I'm curled up under a blanket, and I spent the morning ordering Christmas presents.  December is just about upon us--a whole new month, just waiting for new reading/writing/life goals!  (More on those later.)  For now--Happy November 30th, everyone!