50k and a Winner!

First a quick aside: I start writing a blog generally on the day I think of the concept for one, but I don’t usually get a chance to polish it up to publishable standard it for days after – which is why you will see backdated blogs appearing beneath ones I’ve already published. I try to get the earlier one’s written and published before I publish the later ones, so you get them in chronological order, but I was just so chuffed and excited about reaching the 50k word mark that I published the one titled Wehehehe at the time I wrote it. Sorry if it got anyone confused.

But to continue on with the subject of this blog – it is official; I now have a couple of icons and a printable certificate to say that I have completed 50,000 words of a story.

It would be ridiculously easy to cheat the system if you really wanted to get a copy of the icon, but why would you? You’d only be cheating yourself. There are no prizes – I would have to print out and write my name on the certificate myself if I wanted it done.

So why do it?

I heard a great analogy for it the other day. The people taking part in NaNo are like the people who run marathons dressed in gorilla suits. Such a person is not in the race to win it. They’re there just to see if they can finish. They do it to discover whether or not they have the stamina, the mental strength and sheer will-power it takes to make it, and for the immense personal satisfaction that comes from staggering across that finish line.

I wasn’t in this to win any races. I don’t know if I’ll ever polish this story to publishable standard. I just wanted to see if I could do it. And I was really, really proud of myself when I did. My NaNo page is here with my final word count in case you're interested. It has daily word counts achieved on the stats page - pretty neat. The photo of the cat was there to remind me of the Marvellously Malleable Madame Mephistopheles – My Muse.

I am so glad I took this risk and entered Nano. It was very well worth it.