Kindness.

Lately I have been trying to do word sprints to hack out my novel. I haven't made word count a single day this time around, but I am determined to get on track today.I am currently sitting at 6,658 and I need to be at 10k by the time my head hits the pillow. I can do this. I am a warrior.We are all worried about our word counts, about glaring plotholes, about whether or not our idea is good or not, but to me the main thing is getting this darn thing FINISHED.I want to enter December 2013 as a novelist with a solid first draft. I love my WIP and I really want to get it all written down. I can worry about fixing it in January.I want to prove to myself that I can be busy, have a life, and write a novel. When I finish NaNo, if I win this year, and finish my first draft, I will be around 100k. That will be an amazing way to boost my morale before entering the holiday season. I am going to Hong Kong and a few concerts in December, and I really want to enjoy my time.Which means I have to get this thing out of me and onto my word processors. I found this little gem of inspiration as I was guiltily searching through the forums and NaNo twitter feed:Now isn't that a lovely notion?We just have to finish it! Just get a first draft out! It will be perfect because it will exist. If we sit at our desks crying over our WIP because it isn't making sense, doesn't have enough good conflict, has too much meaningless dialogue, or what have you, we won't ever WRITE the thing. And then it can never be perfect because it won't BE.So come on, you crazy people doing NaNo this year! Let's have a go at wordsprints and write until our fingers go numb and we have not even a pair of socks to wear for lack of doing laundry.If that wasn't enough to get you to put words on a page, think about this: many NaNo novels have been published! We have such a large community, it is easy to find people who feel the same as you, but try to remember that this can turn into something after NaNo is over, if you want it to! Encouragement! Yeah!Speaking of which, I have been thinking a lot lately about kindness and what it means. Am I doing things for people because I want to, or because I want them to think I'm kind? I decided that when I feel good about doing something, that is enough. Kindness, however, is harmful when I am writing because I don't want bad things to happen to my characters whom I love so dearly. But I have to be unkind. I have to tell people to "shut up, I'm writing!" and I have to injure characters and make them sob. I have to be ruthless because that makes for good writing. I guess....Right?Short anecdote from teaching today: I had to ask students questions in English today to help them prepare for their listening exams in English, and one of the questions I had to ask was, 'Who is your English teacher?'One of my students said, 'Monica is my English teacher' and I was soooooo happy haha. I have only been here for a little while, and I always always feel as though I'm not really doing anything, not making a difference. But my students are kind and smile at me and wave when I am on my way home, and they tell me things like 'I like English' so I am really thankful.UPDATE: At work still, but I hit 7k!!! Marvelous! I have 3k to go until I hit the daily word count. But for now, it's lunchtime!UPDATE #2: FINALLY HIT 10K!!! It is past my bedtime but I did it! Goodnight all you crazy Wrimos!