Lara, I was feeling the same way yesterday. I've been out of town for the past several days during my normal writing times, and I'm trying to get ready for a 5 day trip across the country to see my best friend, so I won't get ANY writing done while I'm visiting her. I know I'm about 4500 words ahead of you, but I also know I write s-l-o-w-l-y, so it's terribly hard to catch up if I get behind. And I'm about 2200 words behind the regular NaNo schedule right now.
BUT--I realized that I have written 21,121 words on a book that I couldn't write even one word on during my summer break. The 50,000 word NaNo deadline is an artificial deadline, especially because this book is probably going to be 65-85,000 words, so if I only make 45,000 words, I haven't lost anything. In fact, I've won! I will have most of the rough draft finished on a book I've been trying to write for almost two years.
Okay, so maybe I won't win NaNo. But the reason I never tried before was that I knew November was a terrible month job-wise for me to take on that kind of writing task. And I'm okay with that. I'm still shooting for the 50,000 mark, and if I make it, you may be able to hear the screams all the way across the country. But the purpose of this "contest" isn't actually to write a book in one month. It's to write the book. And that's what I'll do.
