I'm less than 3,000 words away!!  Can't stop to chat...it's off to work!!!

There are so many things to be thankful for, but I want to take a moment here to be thankful for the gift of writing. As exhausting, confusing, exasperating as it often is to be driven to write, I wouldn't switch off that part of my brain for anything.

I'm popping by to reassure you I've reached 32,939 NaNo words, and am on track to finish. Sort of. No, definitely. Packs of rabid hyena could not stop me. Plus, my sister-in-law is hosting Thanksgiving, so I'm off the hook for that.  Back to work......

Remember the moment of ecstasy I reported on Monday?

Ah, yes, the gods laugh.

OF COURSE as soon as I publicly posted about hitting my NaNo goal, real life intervened. My Beloved Students required several Nov. 15 letters of recommendation for college, plus they really wanted their Chaucer essays back, and my colleagues sorta kinda really wanted me to show up for some afterschool meetings..... Then my daughter needed an hour of help each night with her algebra homework. And my six-year-old just plain needed a bath. 

So the past two NaNo days: NADA. Stinkin' zero. Not a word.
 
But I am feeling like a good teacher and good mom, and that will have to do for now.

Hurray! Public humiliation averted! I caught up on NaNo just in time to post my Field Report on the Ruby blog. Stop by and see the amazing evidence that I am NOT BEHIND!!! Rubyslipperedsisterhood.com.

No one ever said NaNoWriMo was easy.

I actually hit 10,777 words last night, which is 10,777 words I didn't have on the morning of November 1st.  But I'm 4,000 words behind where I'm supposed to be. (Life's been utter chaos: my mother-in-law had two surgeries on her spine Nov 1 and Nov 4, and has been in ICU since then...while my husband spends most of his free hours with her, and I'm home single-momming it with my kids, my pets, and my mother-in-law's very sweet but very rambunctious miniature Australian Shepherd.)

No excuses, though...right, Sergeant??

I can't believe next Monday is the half-way point.  On the ninth day, I was about 1/5 of the way through. If only November had 45 days.....

Day One of NaNoWriMo: disgustingly Halloween-candy fueled (will foist the rest of the candy off on my unsuspecting students tomorrow), and still painfully slow-going.  At the moment, I'm at 1066 new words.  Same as the year of the Battle of Hastings. Is that a good omen or a bad one?  Well, the day's not over yet!