The End is Nigh… Sort of.

So, as some of you have noticed, I have crossed the 50K mark. And, I have to tell you, I don’t often smile as much as I did yesterday. I honestly didn’t think that I would make it, knowing the demands on my personal life and my work life. But, I set out this month on what felt like a wild and reckless dash in the beginning to get out as many words as I could. You see, the reason I signed up was because I had wanted to prove a point to myself. I’ve always been somebody who used to not do things because I didn’t think that I could instead of trying to see if I could. Then, when I decided to go abroad last year, I realized that I had to change my motto and change my perception. The cliché phrase of: If you shoot for the moon and miss, then you’ll still fall among the stars… finally hit home.
I learned to do things blindly, to leap into projects even though I had absolutely no confidence in myself.
Because you see, I learned a very valuable lesson, which took me 24 years to learn…

Even if you don’t believe in yourself, there are still others who do. And, it’s more brutal on the psyche to disappoint them than yourself.

So, as with many other things this year, I learned that if you don’t leap and take a chance, you might never get anywhere – not because you don’t have it in you, but because you never tried. I crawled out from underneath my rock and now have a shiny NaNoWriMo Winner’s certificate to prove it. I’m not done yet of course, lol, so you’ll see my word count still growing. Not only am I not done with my project, but I feel that I want to give my country’s word count as much of a boost as I can. The South Africans are still clinging strong to 69th place – and we’re only about 10K behind the next region.

I also have other goals in mind for this month, as well as the next. Firstly, I need to finish a fan fiction fic that I’ve been working on – The Healer’s Touch, before December. If I do, it will be eligible for the 2009 Fannie Awards – a type of Fan Fiction Oscars for all authors writing in the Kim Possible fan fiction genre (yes, yes, I watch cartoons, I’m addicted, there’s no helping me). Last year, this stories prequel – The Touch of Green Fire, got nominated in a few categories as well as myself. I didn’t make it to the top 3, but it’s put an itch in me that says – you can do better, you can reach it… Secondly, I also need to finish another fic, purely because I’ve been at it for a while and need to wrap it up. If I can carry on writing at the pace that I did for NaNo, then I’ll finish both easily by the end of the year.
And lastly, I’m not going to stop writing purely because I love it. I love writing, and in this month I’ve found a space in which to do it which I’ve lost somewhere along the line. Although I’ve always enjoyed it, I find myself having fun again. And, that’s made a big difference not only in my stories but in the way I think about myself.

So, to make a long story short, and a short story longer, I want to firstly thank you all for reading my words. If it weren’t for you, they would never be here. I would like to thank you for your encouragement and your humor and your support.
Although she’ll probably never read this, I would also like to thank the author Kim Harrison again for also encouraging me and my fellow NaNoWriMo’s alike. It made it special somehow, getting encouraging words from someone who’s already made it. And, she made it fun.
I’d like to thank my computer for not crashing on me and my horse for not crashing with me.
And, lastly but not the least by far, I would like to thank my partner, who has an incredible understanding for the fact that I have to live in two worlds. You don’t get someone like this everyday…

If you’re still busy, frantically typing out your word count – I want to a) reprimand you for reading while you should be writing and b) want to wish you the best of luck!! There’s a squirrel, fireworks and a certificate just ahead of you. Go go go!

Have a great day everybody.
Alyssa