NaNo: Day the Sixth

It's hard to beleive we're already six days into November (and NaNo) but even harder to beleive we have to do this for twenty-four more days! Haha.

Did anyone else find the e-mail pep talk by Jonathan Stroud really timely yesterday? I really did. I had planned on making a post today begging you all to remind me it's about quantity and not quality (because I fear my story is lacking more and more of the latter) but Stroud's e-mail pretty much covered it and just in time. It was a great pep talk and if you haven't taken the time to read it, you really should.

As for progress? I'm still ahead. I have to admit though, I pretty much wrote squat yesterday and used up a bit of my padding to take the day off. Why? Loss of focus. I woke up yesterday morning and for whatever reason I thought up a new beginning to a story I started back in January. I know exactly how it needs to start now and I was/am really excited about it. Unfortunately it got me so distracted from my NaNo novel, I couldn't get anything down on the page for it. I ended up summarizing my ideas for the other novel so I won't forget and then laid writing to rest for the day. I just didn't want to risk screwing up my progress by starting the other story.

So, day five was my first slip-up day but I was fortunate enough to have that buffer. Today I'm back on track. I've already met the required word count and then some. I have a 1500 word buffer still but I'd like to up it if I can. Ideally I'd like to stay two days ahead if I can. I know there are at least two days this month I'm not going to be able to write. I better get crackin and write more if I want to accomplish that!

How is everyone else doing on keeping up and/or catching up?

P.S. Anyone else really looking forward to the pep talk by Philip Pullman?!?!