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"Writing a novel in a month is utterly ridiculous, an undertaking for fools and those who don't know any better.  Thankfully, we belong to the latter camp, which makes us dangerously powerful writers. Liberated from the constraints of constructing a pretty and proper novel, we are free to run, naked and whooping, through the valleys of our imaginations.

This month, your story will achieve an at-times frightening force and velocity.  Go with it. Write wildly, joyfully, in huge and bounding strokes. Was that last page the worst thing you've ever written? Maybe.  Does it matter? Nope.  All words are good words this month.  Follow tangents.  Change directions at will. Stay loose.  Make messes.  Laugh at it all.  You are doing something weird and wonderful here, and none of it will go on your permanent record."

- Chris Baty, No Plot? No Problem!

I took a break with 774 words to go for the day and just re-read No Plot? No Problem! - the official user's guide to NaNoWriMo - for a little pep-talk. 

Good stuff.

I think I have my ending.  It's very different from what I thought it would be, but it's fitting. 

And honestly, it could still change.  I still have 4 more days of writing / 7500 words ahead of me.  Stranger things have happened.

I would be feeling sad that this is almost over - like the feeling you get when you're really enjoying a book you're reading and you know you're almost done - except I know how rough this rough draft probably is and how much editing it will need when I let the Inner Editor out of the box to have at it in January.  I already have a list started of things I want more of, plot lines I've neglected to develop enough, characters who are still not quite three dimensional.  Going back over it and expanding and tinkering will be fun, especially if I embrace the task with the same self-discipline I've drawn upon to write the rough draft.

I'm learning so much from this experience.  It's given me such an appreciation for other works of fiction and the writers who create them, it's taught me that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step (and then another, and then another).  It's taught me just how much I can do if I can successfully shut off the nay-saying, critical voices in my head. And it's reminded me of what a great guy I married, because he's been wonderful about all of this, even though I know he secretly can't wait for December.

Getting back to it now... I have a little more I want to write before bed.