Day One: 3,072.

I don't think I've ever written three thousand words in any 24-hour period in my life, not even at Clarion (although it's true that things like word counts occasionally got a bit blurry through the haze of fatigue).

Tomorrow is going to be a shocker of a day, schedule-wise, so I really wanted to push it today. Partly because I knew there would be no time for three thousand words (or even one thousand, the way things are looking), and partly because I wanted to make what was, for me, a big, extravagant, melodramatic start.

There are people on the NaNoWriMo forums who were already saying, only a few hours after they'd started, that they'd written 6,000 words or whatever and were eager to write more today. And I say, hooray! But my 3,000 matter as much to me, constitute as much of a personal milestone, as other people's 6,000-plus.

I've read rants against NaNoWriMo, because it completely dispenses with the idea of quality. The entire point is to push yourself and see what you can do, how many words you can churn out. Stopping to consider if they're any good works against the process. I can see the point of the detractors, but I can also see the value in isolating this one aspect of the creative process -- and, frankly, word count is always a struggle for me, and you can't sell your stuff unless you have stuff to sell -- and pushing beyond perceived boundaries. The idea is, I will never be happy with a measly 500-word day again after this. And I reckon that's a good thing.

Sleep now. Busy day tomorrow. More words? Possibly....