I’m in the home stretch. As of this post, I’m at 40,588 words written, and that’s still after having some of my worst days writing this NaNoWriMo (one dismal 600-word day and an 1100 word day this week).

At my current average pace and goal, I’ll finish by the 20th or 21st. With NaNoWriMo at least. More and more now, though, I’m thinking about the goal of having the whole thing finished, in first draft, before the end of the year. If I can keep up this pace, I can do it. As I’ve mentioned, it’s looking like the novel will be somewhere between 125,000 and 150,000 words when finished, so that gives me somewhere between 35 and 47 days to the end of the novel. As of today, there are 44 more days in the year.

I worry about keeping up that pace, though. I’m worried that I’ll do the same thing I do when I’m running–I’ll push too hard to fast and then tire myself out early and be unable to run the entire distance I’d planned for. I’m not a distance runner by any means (and I like having run much more than I like running), and I’d like to think that I’m a much better writer than runner (certainly I write much more consistently than I run), so maybe this isn’t the best analogy. But, having not attempted to write at this pace for that long before, its the uncertainty that threatens. Isn’t that always the way of things?

On the other hand, though, there’s a part of me that thinks that maybe this pace is relatively easily sustainable. The goal I’ve been setting for myself is to write 2,700 words per day, and I’m hitting that more days than I’m not. It’s been taking me about two hours to hit that word count when I’m focused, and I’m finding it a bit easier to focus each time I sit down to write.

What’s more, I’m finding that, at the conclusion of a session, I still want to write. I often want to work on some side project rather than continuing the novel, some of which will make their way to the blog in the near future, I’m sure, but I don’t feel that my creative juices are exhausted at the end of a session. I’d almost equate that feeling to the runner’s high–it’s a damn good feeling.

Of course, trying to maintain this pace likely means fewer posts on the blog until I finish that first draft, so I’ll beg your forgiveness in advance.

On the other hand, I’ve repeatedly requested readers for the novel-in-progress, so if you’re just dying to read something of mine in the meantime, you have that option!

If you’re a fellow NaNoWriMoer, I wish you the best of luck. Put up a comment and let me know how you’re doing and how you feel about it!