50,060 words. Or 50,205 if you like NaNoWriMo.org's word counter better than MS Word's.
I have completed NaNoWriMo, as of roughly 9:30 this evening. I am feeling somewhat less victorious than I ought to about this, since what I was really hoping for was to actually finish a story this year and word count be damned. What I have so far is at best a very rough first draft of part one of at least two, if not more. Now I'm debating whether I should now focus on going back and fixing/fleshing out/organizing what I have, or if I should finish writing the rest of it first. On the other hand, the pretty icons and whatnot you get after you validate your word count excite me more than they have any right to. (The icons are far prettier this year than last year. This is good. Last year's theme was really ucky.)
On a different note: Earlier this evening, I looked out my window and noticed that my neighbors seem to have put up their Christmas lights. I'm pretty sure they must have done that today, since I don't think they were there last night. Though then again, I'm not sure I looked last night.
Of course, this isn't actually particularly weird, it being November 30th already (well, it was when I looked up... I guess by now it's been December 1st for a couple minutes already). But for some reason, noticing it gave me the sudden feeling that I'd been transported to a different time in my life. Or rather, that the world outside my window had been replaced by one from a different time. The future, the past, I'm not sure. Just some generic "Christmas", as though Christmas is a time all its own. My room felt strangely incongruous: my bed is in the wrong place, and it's too low. It should be a bunk bed, with Becca's bed below mine. I should be on the top bunk, able to touch the cieling with my feet. My walls should be a pink so pale it's almost white, with that strip of princesses and unicorns wallpaper that used to run around the room. My dresser is in the wrong place. My bookshelf is in the wrong place. The stacked plastic crate-things that we used to keep all our stuffed animals and dolls in are missing. I don't even know where they ended up. Did mom rummage them, or are they in the basement somewhere? Other parts of the room I can't even remember, though I know that they're different.
It's surreal: All my memories are right here. I'm sitting in the same room I've been in for pretty close to my whole life. But it's not the same. The room of my childhood doesn't exist anymore, and it's impossible to ever get back. I'll never look out the window and see my neighbor's Christmas lights from just that angle again. I'll never see any of it again, except in my memories. I wonder if I have any pictures somewhere?
It was a creepy feeling, especially in response to something so mundane and predictable as my neighbors putting up their Christmas lights.
On a different note: Earlier this evening, I looked out my window and noticed that my neighbors seem to have put up their Christmas lights. I'm pretty sure they must have done that today, since I don't think they were there last night. Though then again, I'm not sure I looked last night.
Of course, this isn't actually particularly weird, it being November 30th already (well, it was when I looked up... I guess by now it's been December 1st for a couple minutes already). But for some reason, noticing it gave me the sudden feeling that I'd been transported to a different time in my life. Or rather, that the world outside my window had been replaced by one from a different time. The future, the past, I'm not sure. Just some generic "Christmas", as though Christmas is a time all its own. My room felt strangely incongruous: my bed is in the wrong place, and it's too low. It should be a bunk bed, with Becca's bed below mine. I should be on the top bunk, able to touch the cieling with my feet. My walls should be a pink so pale it's almost white, with that strip of princesses and unicorns wallpaper that used to run around the room. My dresser is in the wrong place. My bookshelf is in the wrong place. The stacked plastic crate-things that we used to keep all our stuffed animals and dolls in are missing. I don't even know where they ended up. Did mom rummage them, or are they in the basement somewhere? Other parts of the room I can't even remember, though I know that they're different.
It's surreal: All my memories are right here. I'm sitting in the same room I've been in for pretty close to my whole life. But it's not the same. The room of my childhood doesn't exist anymore, and it's impossible to ever get back. I'll never look out the window and see my neighbor's Christmas lights from just that angle again. I'll never see any of it again, except in my memories. I wonder if I have any pictures somewhere?
It was a creepy feeling, especially in response to something so mundane and predictable as my neighbors putting up their Christmas lights.