Exhiliration.

YES!YES YES YES YES YES!I DID IT! I managed to catch up to all you fire breathing dragons (not to be confused with suck dragons) who did what you were supposed to or a heck of a lot more and I past that little bar on NaNoWriMo last night as I broke into 10,000 words!Now I don't have to panic everytime I see my word count. I was already writing way more than 1,000 words a day in order to try to catch up, so doing 1,667 every day from now on should be cake, right?Well, usually I stay on track every year with my NaNoWriting (and by usually, I mean, I have won once and the other time, it was my first year and I was about 15 years old, so please give me some slack) enough to make my word count. However, I do run into problems along the way. Everyone does. You never know what will happen this month.I have already had to say 'no' to social engagements, but for the most part, I want to try to maintain my social life. I can do that pretty easily, because before November, I didn't really have one. I only do anything relatively social on the weekends. I know friends who are only writing on the weekends and I don't know how they do it. I know I will slack off the most when I don't have to wake up at 7 on Saturday but do anyway.Today's pep talk was really meaningful for me. I had never heard of Patrick Rothfuss before, but I immediately started reading all his blog posts about NaNo and I think he makes a lot of good points. I am the type of person he talks about. I am a rebel this year.The first time I did NaNo, I typed in our computer room as I looked out the window, longing to have someone to play with outside. I was still a kid, ok? I love fall, and I wanted anyone to talk to, but I wrote down words instead. My story was about a girl who read books, I'm sure, and basically I didn't know what it meant to write a real story at that point, though I had tried about a year before and ended up with something I still think is a cool idea. I wonder where those notebooks I wrote in went...But the next year, I won! I wrote a story about a girl who gets transformed into a wolf, and at 50k, I was still in the beginning of the story. I blathered on with descriptions of rooms, dialogue, and basically only wrote three settings. Looking back, it was all crap, but it taught me to write. It taught me that I CAN write a lot of words, get a story down, and make time for writing if I love my idea.I didn't do NaNo after that, but I always read the pep talk emails every year I wasn't participating and wished I were. I just didn't have an idea I loved, though, and I think that is important.Then, as I have talked about in another post, I came up with the idea for Draiocht. I loved it. I still do. NaNo had given me the confidence to just sit down and write no matter what. After a month I had good outline, research, and plenty of words. If it weren't for NaNo, I probably would have just wrote down the plot idea, jotted down character notes, and put it in a draw like I had all the times before with my stories.This year, I am a rebel, not starting from scratch with my idea, but I am only using the words I write during this month to 'win'. I want to feel one with everyone else doing it the 'real' way.I am so excited that I hit my word count, but I needn't forget that I still need to write every day. Not only that, but my goal is different than most other people's, in that I want to finish my draft, whether it stop before I hit my word count or not.As with studying a language, or anything really, writing a book is all about butt-in-chair-time, a phrase my JET coordinator in Nashville told us was the key to studying Japanese. Yesterday, despite going home late, making dinner, talking to friends, and watching youtube videos, I DID IT. I put my butt in the chair, set a timer, and when it went off, I usually set a longer one because I didn't want to stop writing.I have a lot of story to get through if I am going to finish on time, but I know I can do it. I know WE can do it.I will update my word count on this post before going to bed tonight. I have yet to write today, but I have been reading a lot of cool posts about writing, and today I need to do things for school so I don't feel like a slacker for writing at work all day.Get busy doing whatever you know you are supposed to be doing!